Lay-Away Plan

"I want to tell you a story about this guitar," my husband said as stood holding it in front of our seniors' group yesterday. He pointed to the guitar strap over his shoulder with the embroidered words, I AM BLESSED, running along its length. "This is my blessed guitar," he said. "My other guitar has a strap that says, ONE OF THEM, so it's one of them!"

"A young couple with two small children began attending the church we pastored in Mississippi a few years back," Howard began. "Times were hard for them, and they were struggling economically," he went on. "They used butane in their mobile home for heating and cooking, but their butane tank was almost empty and they had no money to buy more. Winter was coming on, so when the church learned of this, we had their tank filled for them."

I remember how grateful "the kids," as we called them, were. Several months later, they stood at the back of the church at the beginning of the service one evening and asked Howard, who was standing at the front, to close his eyes.

"When they got to the front," he continued his narrative, "they said, 'Now hold out your hands,' and they put this guitar in my hands!" He told the group how surprised he was, and how much he likes and treasures the guitar. "It's not as fancy as my other one, but I love the way it sounds," he said.

The couple told us that they wanted to do something in appreciation for the church helping them through that winter. "We put this guitar on lay-away then and have been paying on it, and we just got it out," I remembered them saying modestly through pleased smiles. No wonder he loves it!

When our kids were growing up, I used the lay-away plan many times, especially for their Christmas toys and gifts. That way I could let the store hide them until almost Christmas and I wouldn't have to! Besides which, with six of them to buy for, the regular payments took less of a bite out of the budget!

I think of the Bible verses that mention the treasures God has laid up for us. "Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!" Psalm 31:19.

Or 2 Timothy 4:8, where Paul says, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

My children might have wondered and imagined what they would get for Christmas, but our imaginations would fail if we tried to imagine heaven. "For it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," I Corinthians 2:9.

I had to agree with Howard when he closed his talk with the song, "I Am Blessed."