'Now' is another story. As I watched my Piano go out the door to a new home yesterday the tears just flowed. They've done that several times this week, as "things" disappeared from my life. They're just "things" I told myself...every time! But the tears didn't heed my reasoning.
On Day 31, I sat on the lone couch in a room once bursting with smiling family members balancing plates of warm food on their laps, laughter, and music... and the memories bounced me back and forth between joy and sadness. I couldn't move from that spot for the longest time. I wished we could have just one more "family dinner" in that fabulous big house. I wished I could tell my Mom...I'm sorry...I get it now! I wished I could stop feeling so sad. I asked God to help me understand why this was hitting me so hard. I KNOW it's just a house. I KNOW it's just "stuff". I know I don't "need" any of it. In fact I know and have given thanks for the blessing that the sale of such things has been... a true provision from Him!
And therein rested the key to the deep emotion I was feeling. One by one the memory of the exact day that God "blessed" me with each of those "things"...from the Piano, to the Upright Bass, to the Dining Room Set I was finally able to afford... (to the House itself for that matter)...came flooding back. I could remember, in vivid detail, giving thanks to God for His provision ...for blessing me with something I had prayed and believed for, for so long. I could recall the joy in my heart at His goodness! No wonder it hurts! These were my "blessings"! I had been treasuring them with thanksgiving for many years.
Then He took my my thoughts back through the events of the past few days: To the smiles and joy on the faces of their new owners! The stories each "buyer" told of feeling God had brought us together, for such a time as this. How each item was "exactly" what they had been hoping for! And the realization that these "blessings" were now "blessing" another person!
"Blessed to be a blessing"... were the words I heard whispered to my heart. And it made me smile through those tears. Each "blessing" I received had now been multiplied to bless another...even to bless me a second time by meeting a pressing need. Answered prayers...theirs and mine.
That's what the Living Jesus helped me to see, sitting on a couch in a near empty room in a house for sale on Day 31--Just the two of us.