Stuff and more stuff about stuffy stuff

A friend said she was sorting photographs. She was moving into an apartment. "You only have so much room in an apartment," she said sadly. She couldn't take it all with her.

Another friend mentioned he was sorting tapes. He used to be a minister and the audiotapes of his sermons had piled up. Now what? Who wants audiotapes in an age of CDs? He was in a quandary.

Years ago I found this anonymous essay about stuff, which I haul out from time to time as a reminder that a moving van won't accompny me at the cemetery.

STUFF
Every fall I start stirring in my stuff. There is closet stuff, and drawer stuff, attic stuff, and basement stuff. I separate the good stuff from the bad stuff, then I stuff the bad stuff anywhere the good stuff is not be too crowded until I decide if I will need the bad stuff.

When the Lord calls me home, my children will want the good stuff (I hope), but the bad stuff, stuffed wherever there was room among the other stuff, will be stuffed into bags and taken to the dump where all the other people's bad stuff ends up.

When I visit my daughter, she always moves her stuff so I will have room for my stuff. With their stuff and my stuff....well, it would be much easier to use their stuff and leave my stuff at home with the rest of my stuff.

This fall I had an extra closet built so I would have a place for all the stuff too good to throw away and too bad to keep with my good stuff. You may not have this problem, but I seem to spend a lot of time with stuff -- foodstuff, cleaning stuff, medicine stuff, clothes stuff, and outside stuff. What would life be like without all this stuff?

Now there is all that stuff we use to make us smell better than we actually do. There is stuff to make our hair look good. Stuff to make us look younger. Stuff to make us look healthier. Stuff to hold us in and stuff to fill us out. Stuff to play with, stuff to entertain us, stuff to read, and stuff to eat. We stuff ourselves with food stuff until we're too stuffed to stuff in any more. We end up looking stuffed.

Well, our lives are filled with stuff -- good stuff, bad stuff, little stuff, big stuff, useful stuff, junky stuff, and other people's stuff. Now, when we leave our stuff and go to heaven, whatever happens to our stuff won't matter. We will still have the good stuff God has prepared for us in heaven. -- Author unknown