Never Used….
Never Used
I make no excuses for loving to shop. My BFF and I have a running joke about having nice things and never paying full price for them. I remember spending a Saturday shopping at my favorite shoe warehouse thinking each pair I tried on was more fabulous than the pair before. Then, I found a print pair that I lost my mind over. They were patent leather print...I mean the swirls of green, orange and red made the shoes an absolute conversation piece. I decided to go home and find something to wear them with to church in the morning. NOPE! I was not the “sneaking stuff into the house and hiding” kind of girl. I worked...so I shopped. Take note, my boys came first but there was room for me in the budget. I also decided if I should drop dead, no woman was going to find anything in my closet that was never used...not a sister, not a niece, not the next wife. My mantra became: buy it and wear it or buy it and use it. This sounds funny to me as I write this.
I lived in my previous house for 20 years and when it came time to pack it up, I am happy to report, I found very few things that were never used or worn. I took inventory often and gave away all I could on a regular basis. I realized after living in my new house for two years, I had picked up a bad habit of eating off paper plates and drinking out of plastic cups. I looked up one day and realized my dishes were never used. My drinking glasses were never used. So, I said to myself, “Girl you prayed for these things when you were young...to have matching silverware and dishes and you wait until now to not use them or enjoy them?”
The real “whoa” moment, was when a friend of mine went to an estate sale and spoke to a distant relative of the owner. They shared she had so many beautiful things but never used them. She came home with beautiful china at $1.00 a plate. It was as if they had no value. They only had value to the original owner who never used them, herself. So I ask, why do we store up treasures on earth that we cannot take them to Heaven? If God blesses us to own them whether they are a gift or a purchase, surely we should use them or at best...give them away to someone who might need them. I immediately changed my thinking back to my original mantra. It's so easy to get off track.
I made myself laugh one day wondering if I would be questioned about this at the “pearly gates”. “Lisa, you had coats you seldom wore. Why did you eat off of paper plates and I blessed you with dishes?” Bigger than that...even as I typed this blog, I wondered what I was going to say when God asked me why I never used all of the gifts he bestowed upon me. I wrote a list of what I knew were gifts He gave me. Some might seem trivial if I shared them with you but they were still my God given gifts. I decided to make a conscious effort to share and use all of my gifts with the same enthusiasm I do when I buy a new coat or a new pair of shoes. I decided...if my gift helped one person, I would feel better than not helping someone else on this journey called life. I don’t want to leave this earth with anything I’ve never used.
