The Time Wasn't Wasted!

     One Saturday morning I was anxiously waiting for a garage door to open. The sale was late to start, and when the door groaned its way upward we found out why - someone had broken in the night before. The seller was distraught and the garage was in shambles. She allowed us to come in and pick through the items that were left, hoping to salvage some of her sales.
   
     I was immediately drawn to a large tin - the kind that would hold a Christmas fruitcake. A tin that size was surely holding a treasure under its lid! Sure enough, it was full of my favorite kind of shine, but all tossed and turned in a terrible, snarled mess.

     Though it's fruitcake disguise had kept the tin safe, being thrown out of the way had shaken the necklaces, bracelets and earrings into colorful knots. I sat down on the cold concrete floor and untangled each piece. A beautiful array of vintage jewelry emerged, some were just what I was looking for, so I picked those up out of the pile and got in line to pay.

     The seller held up each sparkly piece I presented, and in the end would only sell one pair of earrings. The rest held precious memories of her mother and grandmother - especially dear on that day when so many other treasures had been stolen away from her.

     I started to feel frustrated with the seller. She was happy the jewelry was untangled and in order, but her unwillingness to part with it meant I'd wasted a lot of my time that morning!

     That was when a Bible verse came to my mind, "...Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." (Matthew 25:40)

     As I looked around at the things that were broken, the mess the woman would be untangling for a long time, I realized my time hadn't been wasted. That instead I'd been given a precious opportunity to encourage a stranger, and in doing so, to do something for Christ!