Greetings from the Moderator                                                     JANUARY 2022

Your Value
 
It is the beginning of a new year and time for a garage sale! It is time to get rid of all that junk in the garage, attic, and closets! To start the new year with a little less stuff. But the process is much more difficult than it sounds, for as you start to collect the “junk” for this big sale of yours, you discover that a lot of these items are not that easy to get rid of.
 
How do you get rid of that bedside lamp that you have had since you got married? Or that first bicycle, with the training wheels, that you used to teach your children to ride a bike. Or that old beach umbrella, with the ice cream stain on it that the family used for so many years going to the beach? For as you are now standing there trying to figure out if you can let go of it, you do not see an old stained umbrella anymore  -  no, you see and hear the ocean and the laughter of your children as your little girl tried to pick up the umbrella – but dropped her ice cream cone on it.  You remember how you went and bought her another ice cream and how all of you had a good laugh on your way back revisiting the plop of the ice cream as it fell. You remember how the stain became a reminder of that “bad ice cream day” and a lesson learned from it.
 
You look at this inexpensive object and now you struggle to get rid of it. You put your stained, faded, dumpster-fit umbrella back. Useless to the world but you keep it because to you it is priceless.
 
Let us imagine for a moment God is having a “garage sale.” He takes us in His hands, and He looks at you, me, your spouse, children, parents, and friends – what does He see? Does He see a broken, faded, useless object or someone “priceless”?
 
The story of Jesus Christ is the story of God looking at all of us and sees and hears in us much more than anyone else can see or hear. He sees in us His own image, humor, smile, and love. It may be in a faded, stained person but He sees in our stains the times when we learned lessons and grew in maturity – He sees enough in us to want to keep us, so that we can be with Him. It is a story of God giving us value. Value beyond what we deserve. He finds enough value in His experiences with us that He wants to keep us, hang out with us, and use us.
In God’s eyes we are priceless and the proof of this is the death “price” of his Son who died on the cross for us. Live with this value in your heart as you face 2022.

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Rev. Ferdi Brits