My mother always straightened up the house before she left it. She said, “One day you will not be able to come home, and your house will be as you left it. What do you want others to find?”
She approached her spiritual life in the same way. She memorized scripture and poetry with “good messages.” She said she prayed that she “would always have her good mind.”
She added, “Your mind is like a chest of drawers. You control what you put in there today. But one day someone else may open those drawers. All they will find is what you put there. Put good things in your mind and in your spirit.”
Mother taught a Sunday School class for years. When she was old, she had difficulty reading. She told the class she thought she needed to give it up to someone else. However, the ladies of the class would not hear of it.
They said she had so much spiritual insight and Words of God’s Truth, they could not do without her teaching. They read the lesson to her to see what she would say. The ladies of the class said she had so much of God packed inside of her, that it just overflowed to them.
The day did come when Mother walked out of her house for the last time. She and my father were in an automobile accident. She spent the remaining months of her life in a hospital. There were times when she appeared confused, due to her condition and medication.
But when that “chest of drawers” of her spirit was opened, beautiful things poured out. She prayed and praised God for her life. She remembered and called Daddy, Richard and me by name. She remembered all our spouses, grandchildren, great grandchildren, friends, and on and on. She prayed for each individually.
Her chest was a treasure chest filled to overflowing with all those good things she had put there in advance of the time they would be found.
What is in your spiritual chest? When it is laid open for all to see, what will be found there?
I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11
