Sometimes, it feels like we’re just moving junk from one pile to another, only to move it again a few days later. 

I had about decided not to write a post today.  I’m always afraid, when I’ve had a rough few days, that my mood will spill over onto these notes, and that’s not always beneficial for anyone.  But, other days, I feel the need to unburden myself in the hopes that someone who has experienced the same thing won’t feel all alone in the world.  I’ll start with some obfuscation and hope that you will stick with me to the end, where all will be made plain as mud. 

Moving junk…Right now, I’m talking about my business.  The merchandise we sell comes in the form of prerecorded compact discs, enclosed in jewel boxes.  We buy hundreds of them a week from various sources.  The delivery men carry them in and dump the cartons inside the front door.  I move the boxes to the counters where they are opened and unpacked.  Then, the CDs are filed in alphabetical order, tagged with an inventory label, and moved to a different office to be entered in the database.  New CDs are given new records, replacements for sold product are simply tallied up and added to the totals for existing stock.  The discs are then moved again, either to my computer to have demo’s uploaded to the online store, or to a table near the files to be further alphabetized and sorted to their respective drawers.  Then we wait.  If you’re counting, we’ve already moved the product four or five times.  And, we haven’t sold a single item yet.

Hopefully the advertising we have purchased fulfills its intended purpose, and orders are entered online.  During business hours every day, the phone rings incessantly with customers who, for one reason or another, are not able to place their order online (or refuse to enter it there).  Both the online and telephone orders are printed from the database and the product is pulled out of the file drawers into stacks on the same table they were on before being placed into the drawers earlier.  When all the orders have been pulled, the stacks are moved one by one to a counter to be…Well, you get the picture.  More moving, again and again. 

When all is said and done, most of the product is moved a total of 10 times while in our store.  And, after awhile, it all starts looking the same and you start to regret ever choosing to sell the junk in the first place.  All day long, just moving stacks from one place to another, only to start over again tomorrow.

If you’ve gotten through this litany of boring drivel and are still hanging with me, congratulations!  You’re going to be rewarded with more junk-moving.  I’m remembering an occasion, almost forty years ago, when Mr. Pennington decided that he was going to help my dad get a garden in.  He came by our house, early Saturday morning about 8:00, dragging me out of bed.  “Your father needs a garden plowed and we’re going to help get it done.”  I grumbled a bit, not seeing how I had any part in this, but I dressed and went with him to get his Troy-Bilt tiller.  Now, if you’ve not used one of these beasts before, let me tell you…The reason they advertise that it won’t jump around on rocks and bounce on the hard dirt is simply that it weighs about 2000 pounds!  Okay, a slight exaggeration, but still to a skinny 16 year old, moving this thing was like shoving a backhoe with the bucket stuck in the ground.  Oh, did I tell you that Mr. Pennington had a bad back and actually couldn’t lift anything heavier than fifteen pounds?  And, to make matters worse, when we arrived at his place to load the tiller in his trailer, it was full of railroad ties and old televisions.  Yep, you guessed it.  I had to unload the ties, thirty of them in all, and the old useless TVs (he wanted to salvage the magnets and tubes someday) and then load the boat anchor of a tiller.  Back to my house, then two hours of running that monster, loading it back up and taking it back to his house.  Then?  You guessed it again; unload the tiller and load the railroad ties and televisions back onto the trailer.  All so WE could get that garden plowed for Dad.  In the whole day, Mr. Pennington hadn’t raised a finger to get the job done!

I usually have a point to these stories, but I’m not sure if I can sew this one up neatly.  The last few days for me have been a lot of personal junk-moving.  Not physically, but emotionally and spiritually.  I’ve had a look in the mirror this week and I haven’t liked what I’m seeing.  There are stacks of garbage and old construction materials that are cluttering up the place.  So some junk is getting relocated.  I think it’s gone, so I don’t have to move it again, but past experience tells me that I’ll probably find it again soon.  Unfortunately, that’s how I clean house; at least it’s how I’ve done it in the past.

I know my method isn’t best, so I’m thinking of pulling a Mr. Pennington.  I can’t do it myself, so someone with a strong back is needed for this job.  I told you yesterday about talking with the kids at church on Sunday.  I’m remembering the message I shared with them, and I’m claiming the truth it reveals.  Tonight, I’m praying that this will be the last time to move this particular junk.  I’m thinking I shouldn’t have to lift a finger either.  The verse I’m talking about reminds us that when we belong to the Savior, old things are passed away.  Examine it how you will; All things have become new!

I’ll take that!  Clean up time…and no moving the junk again later, either.  I’ll try to let you know how it goes.

“Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
(II Corinthians 5:17~New American Standard Version)

“‘Buy, buy buy’, says the sign in the shop window; ‘Why, why, why’, says the junk in the yard.”
(Paul McCartney~singer, songwriter)