The Sunday Sermonette – Kicked to the Curb!

     Some time ago, I went “antiquing.” It was a beautiful early spring morning; the trees were budding, daffodils were blooming, and, to paraphrase Mr. Browning, “God was in his Heaven, and all was right with the world.” It was until I saw a stack of oil paintings leaning against a garage wall at an estate sale.

     A little boy peered out from the painted surface of one picture, his innocence and curiosity palpable. Someone was hiding behind him, their identity a mystery. Mom and Dad, their love evident, held each other in a warm embrace. I couldn’t help but wonder about the stories behind these paintings, who the people in them were, and why the family had left them. The young man running the sale had no answers, only that he was hired to run it.

     As I turned to leave, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness. The paintings, once cherished family portraits, now stood abandoned. Happy eyes looked back at me, but a veil of sadness covered mine. Why had these family portraits been left behind? Were the people in them dead, and no family member wanted the paintings to remember their departed loved ones? Had they been loved? Or had the family, in a moment of heartache, ‘kicked them to the curb,’ so to speak.

     Who was the little boy? Did he mature into an upstanding citizen, a pillar of the community, and a man of integrity? Or did he fall into drinking and drugs and was abusive to his family and friends? Was he someone who no one wished to remember? Or someone who was also kicked to the curb?

     Some families do that. Some friends do that. In this old world, there are no guarantees that family and friends will stick with you through thick and thin, through good days and bad.

     Thankfully, there IS someone who is always there for you! The scriptures remind us of this: “The Lord is with you wherever you go” (Deuteronomy 31:8). “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1st Peter 5:7). When family fails you, when friends fail you, when life, itself, fails you, what a comforting thought this is!

     Ponder this and go forth.