the Treasure

My sister Kaley is at a discipleship training program this summer at Ellerslie. I am so excited for the opportunity she has, and have been very encouraged by the updates she has been sending out. She doesn't have much time for phone calls, but she has called me twice since she's been there. Twenty minute phone conversations really make you think about what is truly important to talk about - reminds me of getting phone calls from my dad when he was deployed.

Anyway, she sent me an email a few weeks ago that was encouraging and I thought I would post it on my blog. Ben, one of the staff at Ellerslie, was talking about the story of the man who sold everything he had to buy a field because he knew there was treasure buried there (Matthew 13:44)...

Ben was talking to us this afternoon, and he said something that made me think. You know that story where the guy finds a treasure in a field and then goes and sells all he has to buy the field? I have to admit, I always kinda thought he was a little crazy, but Ben said something that got me thinking. All the people around him must have thought he was absolutely crazy. Selling all he had to buy a field full of weeds? Who does that?!?

"That land isn't worth anything!" his grandparents probably said.

 

"That land has nothing (or no one) fun and interesting on it!" his aunts and uncles probably said.

 

"That land will be too much hard work!" all his peers and coworkers probably said.

 

"I bought a nicer field," his cousins probably could have said.

 

They looked at what he was so excited about, and all they saw was the weeds and dust.

 

Sound familiar?

 

But he had the treasure!!!

 

It didn't matter what any of them said. HE KNEW why he sold everything to buy the field. HE KNEW what was in that field. HE HAD THE TREASURE!!! Nothing else mattered.

 

Hope that encourages you. I'd never thought of that story quite like that before.

 

 

Bonus - here is an excerpt from my journal when I took Kaley out to start her summer internship. I'm posting it because I want to remember - I want to remember what God is doing in my life and what He has brought me through. Maybe there are others who can relate to these moments.

 

...I didn't want to leave Ellerslie, but when the airport shuttle came to pick me up, I said goodbye to Kaley and climbed in the van. As I buckled up and waited for the driver to give me my ticket, I was doing fine. But as the shuttle lurched forward away from the curb my heart suddenly jumped violently inside me as if it was trying to escape from the cruel human body that was taking it away from this blessed land and back to the hard labor camp of reality. It got as far as my throat and then stuck there as if trapped. I whirled around in the seat and saw my sister through the back window. She was sitting alone on the steps. I watched through the tears as she got smaller and smaller and then faded from view.

 

It was one of those moments in life when I wanted to stop the world. I didn't want to go through with it - I didn't want it to be happening.

 

Like tearing myself 400 miles away from my parents and siblings and experiencing the most difficult season of my life.

 

Like watching someone you love turn from God and turn to the ways of the world.

 

Like crying every time you return to a place because it hurts so much.

 

It was in that haunting moment that I turned from what was behind me and faced forward in the seat. It was in that moment that I tried to make small talk with the driver through my shaky voice. Tornadoes in Oklahoma. Wildfires in Colorado. The 13-hour shift that he started an hour and a half ago. There was a wreck on the interstate, we had to take a detour...

 

And yet my insides were like a wild animal - churning and fighting. The continuing and all-too-familiar battle with myself.

 

He dropped me off where the other shuttle would pick me up and take me on to the airport. Barely anytime had passed before it came careening up and halted in front of me. I picked up my bag, climbed on, sat down by the window, and lost all control. As the tears rolled down, I turned and stared out the window like the typical unsocial traveler. My chin quivered as it always does when I'm trying not to cry. I fixed my gaze on the Rockies until I could no longer see them. The harsh reality of what I was going back to seemed to taunt me...