Lost Hat

The hat in the photo belongs to my son Luke Parker, known in Marine Corps as Major Luke Parker. I bought it for him when he was eleven and we lived in the Great Basin Desert of northern Nevada—39 years ago. Some of my favorite photos are of him playing in the snow wearing that hat.

Since moving to Scotland fourteen years ago I have worn the blue wooly hat nearly every day—winter and summer, because compared to Texas—Scotland has no summer.

When I say I have worn the hat nearly every day, I should add…every day that it hasn’t been lost. I’ve lost count of the number of times the hat has been missing—sometimes for as long as a month at a time. God always brings it back.

Still, even though I’m wearing the hat now, it is a lost hat. Lost because the hat belongs to my son. He left it behind when he moved from our Texas address to his eternal address in heaven. The hat is lost to him. He is lost to the hat—and that’s the point of this blog.

No matter our age, we are all travelers. This earth is not our home. We are just passing through. No matter how many homes we own and how opulent they are; no matter how splendid the furnishings—some day they will be lost to us. They will join the ranks of lost along with Luke’s insignificant wooly hat.

“For we know that if this earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 2 Corinthians 5:1.

When God is in our lives nothing is ever lost.

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Building with Spaghetti

It wouldn’t make sense to build a house with spaghetti. Cooked, the spaghetti would be too limp, uncooked it would be too brittle – and either limp or brittle, a spaghetti house would not last.

Yet too many times in life – we resort to spaghetti building.

Scottish National Party First Minister Alex Salmond resigned his position following his party’s unsuccessful bid to gain Scottish independence from the United Kingdom. Prior to the election, those pushing for independence and those pushing against it spent a ton of money, energy, effort and publicity pushing their agendas. In the end, they were engaging in spaghetti building.

Wherever we live, we need to become involved in our government and voice our concerns and choices. If we don’t, someone with a louder voice takes over. We need to stand up for what we believe in and be willing to expend time, energy and effort to make that stand. But we also need to remember that much of what we do in this life – no matter how impassioned and well-intentioned – is simply spaghetti building. This life that we live right now on planet earth is not intended to be the end of the story. No matter how much money we spend on our health and appearance and how much success and fame we garner down here on earth – in the end, we shatter like broken spaghetti.

The good news is that Jesus Christ, Son of God, is eternal. He is forever. He has built a forever place for us out of gold and precious stones to replace the earthly spaghetti houses we are building. The body shells that hold us on this planet and return to dust like crushed spaghetti get left behind when we “die.” We don’t need them anymore because we get new heavenly bodies that never grow old, never hurt, never sorrow – never lose their perfection.

So when things don’t turn out the way you think they should, don’t get discouraged. Take a handful of spaghetti, crush it and say, “This setback is temporary. It doesn’t matter. God’s plan for me is perfect and it’s eternal.”

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