KEEPERS

Yesterday as I took the garbage out I wondered which of it my mother would have kept. I grew up in the 50's with practical parents: a mother, God love her, who reused aluminum foil, plastic bags, and containers we routinely pitch. She was the original recycle queen. Dad was the fixer. He truly valued his friends, and both were good neighbors. She was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones, and he liked that, too.

Their marriage was good, their dreams focused on farming and raising us five kids. Their best friends lived barely a half mile away. I can see them now, Dad with his farmer's tan, white shirt with sleeves rolled up, and Mom in a house dress, fingers just dried on a dish towel.

It always seemed time for fixing the kitchen screen door, hemming a dress, wallpapering a room, greasing the combine, or going to church. It was their way of life, all that fixing, cooking, church going. There'd better be a good reason for throwing things away. I still feel that way.

My mother died in the fall 13 years ago, and Dad followed her a year and a half later, both in their 90s. And I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes things don't last. Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away, never to return.

So, while we have it, it's best we love it and care for it. And fix it when it's broken. This is true of old cars, sick pets, aging grandparents, hurting children, ailing marriages, even ailing church memberships.

We keep these because they are worth it, and because we are worth it. There's much that is precious about that church we belong to, old friends that moved away, or family members, even if they annoy us. There are just some things that make life important, and people we know who are special. We'd better work to keep them.

I suppose not everything or everyone is a keeper, but there are more around us than we think. It's okay to toss out old junk, but maybe we should retrieve an old relationship. You and I won't measured by the stuff we leave behind, but by the friends we kept. 

And thanks be to our Lord Jesus there will be a grand reunion in heaven, right?