fire and loss

The smell of fire woke me up in the night. A neighbor's condo was burning. Everyone was safe but they lost so much. We talked alot the next day about what we would take if we got that alarm in the night. Valuables or keepsakes, practical items or memorials...

I read this passage in one of my favorite books by George MacDonald just before I slept that night. A grandmother gives her granddaughter a ball of gossemer thread but then takes it and sets in a cabinet. The granddaughter asks why...

"..no one ever gives anything to another properly and really without keeping it. That ball is yours."

The grandmother explains that the beautiful ball is attached to her ring and that if she kept it, it would be of no use at all. Now it is a link between them. A thread that always keeps them together.

The grandmother tells her to "follow the thread wherever it leads you."
"Oh how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!"
"Yes, But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it I hold it too."

When we seem to lose things in a fire or computer crash or someone takes them from us, it is heart rending. Especially the precious things and memories of love... but those things we have given away those things intrusted to another are still with us. We get to keep them, no matter what. Hope and love are alive and remain!

The Author of Love, our Creator speaks through that once 'Pharasee of Pharasees' that Jewish leader turned outcast and renagade. He had lost so much in his life, position, contacts, high hopes and dreams. Paul gave and these and his very life to another and in doing so he truly kept it.

2 Cor. 6:4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. 12 We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. 13 As a fair exchange--I speak as to my children--open wide your hearts also.

Oh yeah, Paul gave it all away. Most especially his heart and what does he get in return... he says, 'and yet posessing everything' ! He had this unheard of fulness of heart by losing and giving, he was full.

He encourages us to do the same...
Romans 12:1-21
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.

'in view of God's mercy' Paul points to the reason that he gladly gave all that he had. God's mercy, His freely given, undeserved pardon and forgiveness. The gift given for each of us, the greatest loss in all Eternity is also the greatest gain. Jesus' gift, his very life laid down to gain Everything back to Perfection.

The granddaughter goes on to trust in the thread holding them together, she trusts and follows where it leads. Sometimes our lives have difficult ways to follow. But we can trust that the Author will leads us if we set our hearts to follow Him.


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