Treasures

When I was in the 6th grade I got bit by the horse-crazy bug. At night I dreamed about them, during the day I read about them, daydreamed and plotted how I would get one. My dad built me a box...a treasure box to keep my horse 'stuff' in. I collected stories from the Sunday Sports section about horses. My grandmother took me to the American Royal to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and their team of amazing horses. I got to shake his hand! and then I shook all the way back to my seat as the reality of what just happened overwhelmed me. ( I am sure my grandmother thought I was a nut) I had just touched the hand of the man who got to touch TRIGGER every day! TRIGGER!  (I have another story about 'my' horse named Trigger...I will save that for another day.) And so, I added the program from the American Royal to my treasure box. 

Birthday cards and calendars and 'How to Break and Train Your Horse' books were added through the years. Model horses of plastic and porcelain made their way into that box, as did my favorite fiction books about horses; Palominos, mostly.  I made 'outfits' for my horses. Show garments with tassels and silver threads, bridles of silver and felt, decorated with rhinestones. What a treasure trove! 

As I grew older, the box made its way to the back of the closet, then the attic. When I married, the box moved with me...first to Tulsa, then Elk City. It went to storage when we moved to Venezuela and upon our return it went from garage to attic to storage as the years passed.  My girls grew up not interested at all in horses.  On occasion, usually when making a move, I would think about the box my dad made and day dream about sharing its contents with a grand child who would one day awake to find an insatiable desire for horses.  He or she would oooh and ahhh over the magnificent horses and horsey attire. He or she would read the historical collection of news clippings and cards, and delve into the books that would become his or hers favorites as surely as they had been mine.

We are moving to Egypt. The packers came to take some of our things to storage. Things like my great Aunt Beth's antique furniture, the carved wooden eucalyptus bench I received for my graduation from high school, memorabilia, and mementos we don't need in Egypt but are too sentimental or precious to dispose of.  And the treasure box. The box that now doesn't have a dial on the padlock. The box that now shows signs of scrapes and peeling veneer. The box we can not open but must because the packers say they have to account for everything in it. And they have to know there is nothing dangerous or perishable inside. 

After at least 25 years, Sam removed the hinges so they could 'process the box'.....go through my treasures.  I went in the house. I did not want to see the things in the box. I wanted them to remain as wonderful and magical as they did when they were placed there by a child in love with horses. This love that I would share with someone special to me. I wanted them to remain in the box until that day! So-let them look and pack it back again, but I am NOT going to peek!

First the packer brought me a pale golden horse with a broken leg...just so I could see the condition before they packed it. A few minutes later, she brings me two horses...legs obviously repaired several times and now with parts missing.  This doesn't look like my treasure, but it IS the same white horse with golden highlights that I remember. And that one is the palomino I bought with my own money while we were on vacation. Broken. Tarnished. Not Magnificent. 

So I went to the garage to look at my box.  "Oh, we can leave those things and pack them just as they are,"  she says to me. "We have removed the  delicate items."  I open the lid now hanging on by its non-functional padlock. As the light from the overhead bulb illuminates its contents, a musty odor fills my nostrils; a pungent unmistakable smell...MOLD!  I look inside at books, news paper clippings, and cards-all covered with a powdery green mold!  My heart sinks. With two fingers I pull out some books. Lying underneath them are rodeo and showdeo programs with my participant number tucked in the folds of each. I pull them out...Garnett, Kansas; Stanley, Kansas; Ottawa Play Day; Stillwell Showdeo- where I won my first trophy...one by one, the memories returned...memories of friends, and horses, and my mom and dad with their station wagon full of horse gear and hay strands...nights of high expectations and about as many wins as losses...a child hood full of horses- a dream come true.

But a treasure no more.  I could not keep a thing in the box, for if I did, the mold would infect every other item in that storage container...my great Aunt Beth's furniture, the letters and mementos and memorabilia...

I am reminded Matthew 6: 19 & 20--"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures in boxes, where mold and mildew destroy... but store up for yourself treasures in heaven...  Where is your treasure stored?  What is your treasure? 

  Matthew 6:21 ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.