May 19 – “Treasure in many forms”

We found out that Mom officially has another urinary tract infection.  That's the elusive contamination that has weird effects on older adults.  This time, other than that jerkiness with her arms and legs the other day, she has just been sleeping a lot.  And one other thing came out of the blue.  She may have injured some ribs again.  She has some tenderness in the same area of the ribs she broke when she fell out of bed last year.  As far as we know she hasn't fallen again, unless she did it when we weren't around and forgot to tell us.  She's on antibiotics now, so hopefully she will climb back yet again.   Yesterday we cleaned out the rest of our stored stuff from our friend's garage.  Not too bad – just two years later.  We found bags of plastic cups and boxes of coffee cups.  Some of them were ours or Nathan and April's, and some of them were items that were donated after the storm.  Chris has started the process of cleaning everything up and putting some of it in the church garage sale this Saturday.  We ran across the evil Teddy Ruxpin doll that came into our hands some years ago.  Our boys never got into playing with it, so it was relegated to a spot in the attic.  That thing always gave me the creeps for some reason.    This last load yesterday was primarily seven or eight bed frames.  That would be headboards and footboards and the iron slat supports in between.  There was an iron twin bed set that had been stored in Mom and Dad's garage attic for years.  There was a Jenny Lind double bed frame.  Wait, maybe there were two of those.  One double bed set belonged to Chris' grandmother.  There was a daybed that Mom had in her sewing room.  That one is going to be Cailyn's bed when they get it cleaned up.  She's also getting a dresser that was in there.  We also picked up some boards that we have used over the years for shelving.  Chris already has a project planned for them.  She wants to build a custom shelf for DVD's.  One of the bags was full of stuffed animals that Mom and Dad had.  One of them was Dad's favorite.  It was a mean looking bulldog with a motion sensor.  He barked whenever someone walked near him.  I'll have to get some batteries and see if he still works.  I guess it's true that treasure comes in many forms.   2 Corinthians 4:7-9 says, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."   Father, thank you for every treasure, even the ones that are dirty and rusted and broken … kind of like me.  Amen.