I’m packing to move into our new house. Suffice it to say I am beside myself with happiness—sticky sweet, cotton candy happiness.

I know that the down-to-the-paper-cone moment will come, where all my fingers are stuck together, I’ve got a blue tongue, and a sugar dive is in progress. Reality will hit. (The first mortgage payment, or a call to the plumber…) But, for now, I will be “in the moment” and enjoy this treat before it melts.

There are things that do last, and, of course, they’re not things at all. Yet, I have a collection of objects that, to me, are more than what they seem. They are the tangible-ordinary speaking to me of the intangible-extraordinary.

God, from the beginning, has given us what we can see, smell, and hear to help us grasp something about realities unseen. To His people, being led to places unknown, God gave a tent filled with candles, incense, a golden ark, a heavy curtain, an altar, and sacrifice to reveal something about Himself along the way. Of course, all these culminate not in an object, but in a Person. God’s love with skin on: Seen, heard, touched, flogged, sacrificed, alive again and observed returning to God. He too gave us bread and wine to help us remember. It occurs to me that all these things can be packed up and taken with the traveler on the move…

Yet, ”Life makes it so hard, sometimes, to know what’s real,” sings Crowder from my iPod as I move around my house, packing. These are some of the things going into a box to keep, things that speak to me of what is real:

  • A weathered-looking sign we hang across the kids’ doorway that reads “For Always, Forever, and No Matter What”. It speaks of our love for each other, but wider and deeper and more perfect still: The constant love of God.
  • A creased, many-times-taped boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia from my and my brother’s childhood. It speaks to me of the maddening dash of time, the preciousness of each moment that becomes fairy tale in the re-telling… The reality of, the anticipation of heaven, where my brother is now, where the happy is ever-after.
  • A sketch, many times re-printed, of Jesus laughing. Remember, He is here, among us. We are the “joy set before Him,” the reason he endured the cross. With Him, I am utterly satisfied.
  • A small collection of birdcages, all the doors flung wide open, to remind me that she who the Son has set free, is free indeed. Free to give without fear, love without strings, to know and be known.
  • A snapshot of four chairs circled on a beach. I am not alone here, I live within a community of others who are the broken but soul struck followers of Jesus. We circle up then go out, in the strength of His love and our bond. We remind each other we are not Home yet.
  • My notebooks. I have boxes and piles of them because writing has always been the most natural way for me to understand my story, and listen well to the stories of others. These notebooks, like my friends, help me process the moment and the journey, and the reality of both God’s sovereignty and His goodness. Reading back through them, I am astonished at His grace. What do I have that I have not been given? Where have I gone that God has not been there? These are questions that firmly keep the stuff of my life in its proper place, like moving into a new house.

These things are the durable goods of my life. They help me see the now for what it is, and enjoy God there. They help me to be grateful, hopeful, open to what is next. I have a friend who has a little pile of stones on her kitchen windowsill, each a quiet acknowledgement between she and God of His presence in her times. Like the Israelites, she is constructing her own ebenezer. I believe this is wisdom for the way.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11

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