Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
This last visit to New Jersey was great and good for the soul once again. There is something about going back to the place where my childhood was created. I am blessed enough to be able to still walk into the same home that I was brought home from the hospital in. Although my beautiful momma isn't there to hug me with open arms my Dad still is. 💛
We relived many great memories together like going to Country Kitchen and eating pork roll sandwiches, to waiting for the bridge to go up and then down on ocean ave from Belmar to Avon, driving all along the Jersey shore beaches, seeing my old place of employment (The Breakers), eating Lobster at one of my fav restaurants, visiting with my sister and her family, and then visiting churches. Not just visiting them because we were visitors but we were itinerating as missionaries there. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would ever go back to my home town to do that. I had always thought that missions was going to be apart of my life but I didn't ever really know if it was ever going to be my full time focus. 😅
Carry on...
So in my down time my dad asked me to help him go through more things in the house. Things that have just not been touched or messed with in the last 10 years now that mom has been gone. This is always a hard task. It just hurts my heart and makes me sad that she isn't here. Here to experience life with my kids, me, all of it. She would have been the BEST grandma ever! Period. AHHHHHHH!!!! k. no going back. Sorry. Just have to get feelings out sometimes. Anywho...I went through some more closets and got rid of some more stuff. yup. stuff. stuff that was hers. Clothes. Belts. Shoes. ETC. Things that are just hard to get rid of sometimes. But I did it. 💔
In the middle of going through some more I found some more treasures. Yes. These are treasures to me. Every year. Every anniversary of her death. Every birthday. Every holiday. You name it. Every normal day lol. I look for pictures. I look for "new" pictures of her in it and its been slim pickings in my house for awhile now. BUT I found "NEW" ones!!!!! Like my heart leaped for JOY! My middle name. 😉
So here are some new ones.
I will give you a little back story on these. This is a picture of my mom holding me in the "gold" chair. The squeaky old "gold" chair. It rocked and it squeaked but it was the safest place for me. She would come home from a late night at the salon (hairdressers know what I am talking about crazy hours!!!) and sometimes pull me out of bed to rock me back to sleep just to get a moment with me. Sometimes I'd be waiting up for her just so I could get a moment with her. (She worked her tail off for us!) As crazy as it sounds not lying even up until I moved out to get married and it came with me, if I was having a bad moment I would jump in that chair with her and feel the safest. She would tell me everything was gonna be alright. She would pray over me in that chair. She would make jokes with me in that chair. We shared life together in that chair. Lol. It moved from that chair to the red chairs. Ha. I will share that later sometime. Ok. Seriously, when I look at the whole picture it wasn't the "chair" that made it but it was the relationship built in those moments. The chair just happened to be the on looker. I guess. So. Fast Forward. The chair moved with me. Ha.
When I was getting married and moved out I told my mom I had to have that chair so I could have it to rock my babies in and make memories with them in it too.
Josh had the chair recovered for one of my birthdays because he knew how much I cherished it and I didn't want it to keep falling apart and aging. This is the chair now. It's beautiful. It still squeaks but that is because Josh asked specifically that when they redid the chair that they didn't mess with anything else except for the upholstery. The squeak makes it. 😌
So my God moment in all of this... (cause that's in all of it right?)
I asked myself the question...if I had to give up "the chair" would I? Yikes. That would be a really hard thought out yes (biting my tongue, gritting my teeth, shoulders tight, super stressed yes lol). I would if I had to only because I know its not about "the chair" that gave me all the feel good feelings and rescued me from some really deep dark moments in my life, but its about the moments that were spent with my mom in that chair and since she ain't coming back to sit with me in it, it really isn't that worthy. I will say that I won't give it up easy and I will try to keep it but I am just working through my feelings and knowing that it's not the chair but its all the moments shared in "it" instead. The pictures are a treasure also! I was so excited to find these treasures and being able to "see" the memories again that I had in my heart in front of me made me feel the joy and pain all over again. I feel them. I have them show up every once in awhile but then to actually have a picture to go with them is honestly indescribable.
So I'll state the scripture verse again...
Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Where are you in this? Do you hold onto things? Too many things? Not enough things? Do you build up something into something bigger than it should be? Do you treasure moments? Are your treasures in heaven?
I love how Jesus tells us “Store up treasures in heaven where moth and rust will not destroy.”
Basically saying the things of this world will get messed up or ruined but if you “treasure” what you can take to heaven with you, you will be able to keep it forever. That helps my heart a lot. So with that in mind…I will treasure my relationships. I will treasure those that I will be able to see again one day and make beautiful moments and memories in the meantime.
Alicia Joy
