Spring cleaning is an annual rite of passage in my house. Out with old, please no more new. I used to be able to pack everything I owned and fi t it into my Toyota Corolla. Now I have to rent a U-haul to go to Goodwill every April.
This year we decided to have a yard sale. We invited our neighbors to join in the fun, selected the neighborhood park as a central location for the sale and advertised in all the normal venues.
All went well as we stacked hundreds of big and small, cheap and expensive items by our front door in preparation for the big day. The clutter was manageable for a week and then I broke down.
"Honey, we need to borrow a trailer to store this stuff until the sale," I told my wife. "I’m going to break my leg trying to negotiate this maze of boxes and containers." She agreed.
Yard sale day arrived and we were in the park unloading the trailer at 5 a.m. in the dark, trying to display all our treasures on the borrowed tables.
At 6 a.m. we had our first early birds. No sales. At 7 a .m. a few more perusers made their way through. By 8 a.m. we had made a grand total of $7. I was starting to panic.
Around 11:30 a.m. I had to fight back the tears. I was just so tired, so beat up from two weeks of loading and unloading, sifting and pricing, purging and pleading with my children to cut ties with that toy they never play with anymore. Now, with 30 minutes left before closing time, we had made less than $20.
I was tempted to buy a gallon of gasoline and burn everything right there in the park. The prospect of reloading the trailer or, God forbid, putting this stuff back into our house, ugh, I would rather drink poison.
Then, a final customer moseyed over to our book section. After a moment, she looked up at me and said in a surly tone: "I’m not much interested in your book collection. They are a bit too spiritual, borderline religious."
I smiled even though I could tell she said "borderline religious" in the same way someone would say "he has borderline personality disorder." She seemed to think I might be dangerous.
Then she said it again. I thought to myself "that’s odd. Why make that comment a second time? Are you trying to tell me something Lord? Do you have some deeper purpose for this woman?"
I took the bait hoping that God was behind this encounter.
"I work for the Catholic Church," I explained and we chatted a bit over what I did. I ascertained that she was brought up Catholic but had put some distance between herself and the institutional Church over the years. Perhaps God was leading her back to Him and I was the bait.
"I write for The Catholic Week and that book is a collection of my columns," I offered pointing to a box of books on the last table. To my surprise she walked over and picked one up. She even stood there and read an entire chapter, right in the middle of the park.
"What are you doing Lord?" I asked Jesus. No answer. I waited to see if a door would open for more conversation. Nothing. She simply thanked me and walked back to her car. She didn’t even buy the book.
 | About David O’Brien David O’Brien is the Associate Director of Religious Education for Lay Ministry for the Archdiocese of Mobile. His column, Everyday Faith, appears regularly in the archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Week. Email David at dobrien@mobilearchdiocese.org. |
But strangely, my spirits were lifted. Gone were the thoughts of arson and throwing all this stuff into a landfill. Now I was invested in God’s work with this woman. My mind was caught up in a greater plan, a noble and glorious purpose that God might be unfolding through this abysmal yard sale.
Yes, we had spent over 300 hours getting ready for this disastrous event. Yes, we had sacrificed sleep and time with our children in the hopes of making thousands of dollars. But none of those crushed expectations and investments seemed important anymore as I watched this woman close her car door and drive away. All I wanted was for God to plant a seed in this lady’s heart, a seed of love that would grow and perhaps one day entice her to give God and the Church a second look.
Will I ever see this woman again? Probably not. But I wonder if she were writing this column a year from now, perhaps she would entitle it "The Yard Sale from Heaven" because this is when she started her journey home to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment