What's Wrong With My Junk?

There is an old saying that “one person’s junk is another one’s treasure.” After a recent yard sale and seeing what people were buying from my household rejects, I can see that this must be a true statement. I mean, these were the things from the back of closet shelves, tops of cabinets and shelves, old dirty and worn tools and yard machines, coffee mugs and shot glasses from every casino and tacky tourist town in the country and linen patterns that went out of style in the early 1970s when I was in college. People bought food processors without any blades and tacky silk flower arrangements that should have been thrown away as soon as they were made. They were lining up to buy this stuff…. and actually paying me money. It still astounds me.

Seven hours later, the dregs of the junk were left. The clutter that even the most ardent and die-hard yard sale customer would not buy…not for a dollar…. or marked down to fifty cents…. not even when finally moved down to the quarter table. As I loaded the trunk of my car with these items to take to a local charitable outlet, I thought over the day and the items that sold and those that did not. Obviously, in this case my junk was also someone else’s junk, too.

There are days that I wake up and realize that I don’t spring out of bed as quickly as I did ten years ago. If I were to spring like that, my knees and hips would probably rebel and I would end up in some pretzel position on the floor that would be difficult to explain to the EMT staff when they arrived. I find myself making the “grandfather sounds” when I try to stand up from the sofa or recliner. You know, that kind of groaning “Oy” sound that involuntarily comes from deep within. The aging process is beginning to take it’s ugly toll on me and I am beginning to feel a little junkish myself at times.

Being a single guy is cool when you are in your twenties and even thirties. You can still stay up until the wee hours, maintain brain functions and be productive the next day. You can still get by with driving the cool cars without being accused of having a mid-life crisis. Then come the forties and fifties and suddenly the single guys are often discussed over the Sunday dinner table like we are afflicted with some dreadful condition. Like the dregs of society that no one has wanted; the things left on the quarter table after a yard sale; the unspoken questions of “what do you think is wrong with him?”

Where I am heading with all this is the point that in God’s eyes there are no dregs or leftover junk. It doesn’t matter whether we are skinny or overweight, tall or short, married or single. He doesn’t care about our ethnic background, rich or poor, balding or like Rapunzel in the tower. We are all equal in God’s creation and even though we may disappoint Him when we do not live as He asks, that does not change His love toward us.

So, take joy in your diversity and your eccentricities. You are part of God’s world and he will never love you any less. That’s why God never has a yard sale; He loves everything He has. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

And for today my friends, this has been the gospel according to Jimmy.