Buried Treasure: Revisiting The Precious Gifts of God

The events of the last two weeks hang over all of us like a heavy fog now. Pandemic pandemonium. Loss of life. Destruction of property. Flaring tempers. Dashed hopes. But I managed to encounter buried treasure revisiting the precious gifts of God.

Flashback to two weekends ago. The sun began to come out after months of lockdown. My husband and I rolled the proverbial dice to take a trip. We traversed cross country to celebrate his mother’s 79th birthday. We prepared, assembling an onslaught of wipes, masks and sanitizers. With sandwiches in tow and courage abounding, we survived the harrowing flights both ways. The birthday proved a great success. What we didn’t bank on as we returned:  a curfew imposed before our plane even landed. And some texts from our neighbors about a threat to our street sent me right over the precipice of my already elevated anxiety.

The moment I removed airplane mode from my phone, the beeps arrived nonstop to my phone. Two men spotted on our block began videotaping everyone’s houses on Tuesday night. Needless to say, this raised eyebrows. When a neighbor and the police she’d called approached and asked what they were doing, one of them angrily replied “you’ll know soon enough.” The majority of the neighbors boarded up their windows. Those with weapons had them cautiously ready. I was reading the blow-by-blow, finding it hard to believe our street was a target.

Threats Amidst the Chaos

Questions abounded in my mind.

Would these men and possibly others make good on their threat?

And what about police protection?

We couldn’t drive to the property that night for a variety of reasons, including the imposed curfew.

My emotions were reeling. Yet turning on the TV and seeing footage of the looting of local business and stores when we arrived home did little to assuage my fears. Would individuals really come for private homes? We don’t live at this property full time. Messages about targeted neighborhoods peppered the local internet. Scores of protesters organized. And nearby neighbors spotted a cachet of bricks with their own eyes. (Thankfully, all who marched near our home totally focused on the message not mayhem.) But we didn’t know that would happen at the time.

But something snapped inside of me in the days that followed. On my Dorothy-style journey to and from Oz, fear initially upended me. Like a Kansas tornado, it spun me around. Like her, I landed in a strange place. I didn’t even recognize myself as belonging there at first. And that is exactly what God apparently had in mind.

Fears of Grafitti and Molotov Cocktails

It’s not the first time injustice plagued my life. I’ve been burglarized about four times. My husband was carjacked and pick pocketed on two separate occasions. Yet in this instance, seeing throngs of people destroy businesses and vandalizing anything they could get their hands on felt more threatening. To think that my home and others were in danger proved a bitter pill to swallow.

I spent several sleepless nights fretting about the house and its contents. Somewhat benign acts like spray-painted graffiti on our brick exterior dominated my thoughts. I then graduated to worse offenses in my mind’s eye. Visions of molotov cocktails thrown into the windows proved hard to evict. I’m not proud of how wild my imagination ran, I’m just being honest about my experience. Certainly as a creative writing major and storyteller you can see where I’m coming from.

In my emotional helplessness, from afar I began an inventory. I asked myself this question: what really mattered to me inside of it that I absolutely couldn’t live without. And that’s when it hit me. All inside was really all just stuff at the end of the day. Except for one precious thing. A bear made out of one of my grandmother’s old coats. So the bear is indeed irreplaceable. The aroma of her perfume still lingers decades after her passing. And I could probably even endure the loss of that, I thought. My Nana will always be a treasure of my heart and bear or no bear, I would always have her with me, bear or no bear.

In that moment of revelation, the Lord reminded me of a familiar verse from Matthew 6. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Nana, and so many other important things, are indeed secured in my heart.

Excavating Real Treasure

If my heart and treasure are not of this world, and this world is not my home, why should I care if my stuff is stolen or wrecked? I knew this truth intellectually. My shelter is a backdrop. And my stuff is an assemblage of props in this world that is not my home. Yet in the face of loss my perspective changed. If something isn’t valuable, it won’t need securing. And if things aren’t treasured, we don’t need to mourn the loss of them. And I decided not to spend one more moment fretting about that.

I was able to let go of the grip that potential loss had on me. I knew it would pale in comparison to tomorrow’s eternal gain. So I properly aligned my heart and that treasure, with God’s help, my fears diminished. God reminded me that once my heart belongs to God, no one can break in and separate me from Him. It’s the only treasure that can never be stolen or ruined.

That’s why Jesus made this statement about treasure. His words encourage us not to waste one ounce of our energy on worthless things. Our sacrificial Savior knew misplaced affection on things of this world would only set us up for potential heartache. In Revelation 3:5 we read that “the one who conquers will be clothed in white garments” and that God will never blot his name out of the Book of Life. Jesus sealed the deal with the sacrifice of His very life and His precious blood.

Epiphany Changed

Even though my epiphany changed my thinking, I saw no real harm in securing my precious bear. I asked my sister in law to rescue it – just as a precaution. And later that night, I went into my closet and sprayed my mother’s discontinued Tiffany perfume all over me. I felt an inner warmth as I enveloped myself in her scent. Loss is still loss. And sometimes it’s still hard, even years or decades later. But these little ceremonies and mementos don’t rule and reign in my heart. They just help decorate my story this side of eternity.

Mom and Nana moved to their new digs long ago. Because their treasure was where their hearts were also, I feel confident we’ll see each other again in eternity. Assurance is mine. Dorothy’s “no place like home” conclusion rings true. In heaven, where all is prepared for us, our heart and our treasures perfectly align. Someday, those who belong to God will experience the eternal security.  Total sufficiency in the arms of our loving Father God is their destiny. I hope and pray you’ve already chosen to be a part of God’s forever family. If not, pick up your shovel. Begin your excavation for this, our only permanent treasure.