Do You Know Where...

My dental hygienist told me an amusing story. Of course it was while cleaning my teeth when I couldn’t laugh out loud! LOL online works fine, but when you really get a chuckle out of something and can’t chuckle, it is so wasted! She’d gotten an email from a civic official in her childhood town where her mother had been the important “go-to” lady until her death a few years ago. The town is celebrating 150 years this fall, and when officials dug for the time capsule buried 50 years ago, they came up empty-handed. They don’t suspect time capsule thieves; rather they just don’t know where it’s buried. They were curious if she, by any chance, knew its location. And guess what – of course she didn’t!

Her mom would know, or did know, but she never mentioned it to the family and apparently no one else has a clue either. So, likely, the anniversary will go on without being able to take “time” out of a capsule, review it, savor it, and learn from it. When I was finally able to speak with the hygienist, we found humor in such a ludicrous situation where things had carefully been gathered and stored with pomp and circumstance, only to remain hidden, maybe forever!

And then with a newly polished smile, I reviewed some of the questions I’d love to ask my own mom and dad, who’ve already gone on to glory. My dad was a civil engineer who specialized in concrete and bridges. As we approached a bridge in the car, we’d get a sound byte description of some facet of that bridge. I was usually deep in thought about my haircut or how to get through some class, so I didn’t pick up on that stuff ever. Now my mind is less cluttered and I’m interested in what he tried to share and, even more, what his experience with each bridge had been. It’s the same with my mom -- lots of questions about recipes, what she was thinking when a certain picture was taken, and why she did this or that.

A little take-away from this pondering is to always tell people where you put “it!” You may not have a missing time capsule in your family, but I bet you have a story or two that would mean a lot to generations to come. Send me one that comes to mind! For sure, write it down where it will be found.

God went to great lengths to be sure His Word, The Bible, gets to us. Seriously, thousands of years later, and experts still come across old documents and scrolls that authenticate the exact words that soothe our souls today. Just check out the new Bible study How We Got The Bible, featuring Dr. Paul L. Maier (yes, that Dr. Maier who discussed the history of Christmas with me last year on Woman to Woman®) -- The Bible has been, and still is, banned, burned and misinterpreted, yet the Word of God lasts forever. I know from friends who’ve been deprived of it in, for example, POW camp or in countries where it’s illegal to have a Bible in your home, that the words they memorized and tucked in their hearts never left them.

Some of our “stuff” may get buried and lost, but we’ll never come up empty-handed on the timeless truths from The Lord of Life Himself. That should put a smile from our faces down to our hearts to share with others, even without a dental hygienist’s mother to remind us about “it!”