Treasure Hunt

It started as a drive looking for color.  Tony had an appointment near Bloomington last year during October and he raved over the beautiful leaves when he returned home (actually, he might have been so impressed he told me on the phone before he got home!)  Having been raised in Michigan, I suppose we are hard to please when it comes to fall colors showing off.  Of course, we didn’t appreciate it when we lived there.  But it was certainly something we noticed and missed our first fall in Indiana and most every fall since.

Well this year with the very cold nights, lots of rain and warm, sunny days, we figured the color would be especially pretty down south.  So even though we had been in revival all week and were tired out, we knew this was our last chance or wait until next year.

We got as far as Martinsville and decided we better head back towards home.  We needed to pick up a few groceries and wanted to take the girls to a park as a reward for putting up with their parent’s weird ideas and cooping them up in the van for several hours to go look at colorful leaves.

On the way back we took an alternate route…one that would wind us up and around the west side of Indy.  We turned onto what looked to be a curvy highway.  I am not a very good traveler either, truth be told; I get car sick.  So Tony asked if I would like to drive.  That always helps…well, helps me anyway…it seems to tense him up a bit.  (I could get away with more before he had a sleep machine!  I drove most everywhere and he didn’t know the difference –whether I was a good or bad driver- back then because he was asleep.) 

Just before he pulled over I spotted a Flea Market sign.  I read the sign aloud and then glanced at the building as we drove by.  Tony asked if I wanted to stop.  I said, “Not necessarily…looked like a bunch of junk.”  Then he mentioned that the kids had never been to one.  Since I had seen another sign for one earlier in the day and had favored them all with a flea market experience from my childhood (look for that one in another postJ) it might be fun to them.  So we turned around.

We walked in and yep, I was right.  Junk, junk and more junk.  As far as the eye could see!  We looked over some of the junk and were just about to leave when the girls spotted a stairway.  Could we go up there, please?  There was a sign on the wall that read, “More upstairs”.  Maybe they kept all the good stuff up there!  So up we went.  But when we rounded the top of the stairway, you guessed it…more junk!  We poked around a little bit more up here though.  Now that we had wasted time it seemed a shame to leave and not get ANYTHING out of it.  Tony was ready to go and I was looking at just one more table when suddenly I spotted IT!  A game that my family used to play when I was growing up.  I had never seen it for sale anywhere.  I don’t even remember how my parents acquired it but it provided such fun and it involved money (the only way to get Tony to play a game).  It was only $3.  I motioned for Tony to come look. I opened the lid. It looked like it had been played only a few times.  I pulled out the instructions to see what should be included.  I wanted to make sure the pieces were all there.  They were.  Last hurdle…would the owners take a check?  We didn’t have any cash.  They did and now I am a proud owner of the game, Masterpiece. 

I thought about it after I got home and the Lord gave me a real quick sermon.  How often have I looked at someone and thought they were hopeless or worthless?  Maybe they were loud and obnoxious or lacked a little in the area of hygiene.  Maybe they were uneducated or challenged mentally.  How many people have I written off because of those things?  On the surface, they didn’t seem worth my time.  But if I would just take a little bit more time to get to know them I might find a buried treasure.  Maybe a special talent or another side to their personality waiting for someone to bring it out.  Maybe they just need someone to claim them to make them feel like they are worth something.  Ouch!  And then my mind took another turn and I realized that God had done just that with me and many others before they became His child.  We looked worthless but He knew we were each worth something and He came looking just for us!  We are His treasure, His Masterpiece.  How can we do anything less when working with His creation?