What I Learned When I Lost Everything

We boxed our belongings and packed everything onto the moving truck. When we arrived at our new house, states away, our stuff never showed up, and the moving company stopped answering their phone.

No one could tell me where to find our handprint Christmas ornaments or Safety Bear, my worn childhood teddy missing one ear. Our family of five slept on the floor of our new house as we waited and waited for our beds to arrive—while thieves slept snugly in theirs.

A lawyer friend discovered a federal investigation underway to indict the company’s owners who had scammed more than 900 customers. My friend told me we would probably never see our belongings again. I felt as if my life went up in flames, and I had invited the flamethrowers. How could I have been so careless to have chosen a fraudulent company?

Shortly before this happened, my mom passed away, and I cleared out my childhood home. When I pulled back the covers on Mom’s bed, moths fluttered. She’d only been gone a month, and insects already feasted on her bedsheets.

To some people, the large oak tree out front was just a tree. The red brick fireplace—just a hearth. The creaking maple floor—just old boards. But to me? It was sacred. Rooted. Home. Now gone.

Within a few months, I’d lost the place of my childhood and my family’s things.

Years have passed since this season, and my heart still aches. But this experience helped me see the material world from an eternal perspective and consider how God wants us to live when it comes to being keepers of stuff.

Created to Care for Stuff

In the beginning, God created stuff. He spoke and the world burst forth, displaying the glory of God—oceans and hills, rubber-clothed dolphins, and feather-stitched owls. The grass in our yard? God made. The metal used to forge our car? God made. The trees carved for the beams in our homes? God made those too.

God then created man and woman to take care of his stuff—to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). This kind of dominion is more like a farmer caring for the soil to produce a crop rather than a dominating dictator (Genesis 2:15).

But with the fall of humankind, we inherited a disordered view of subduing and taking care of what God gave us. The first sin that shattered the world’s wholeness came from humans not keeping the garden. God commissioned Adam to work and keep the garden (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew word šmr is often translated in our English Bibles as “keep,” but it can also mean to “protect.” Adam should have protected his wife and the garden from the serpent’s temptation.

Furthermore, Eve failed to obey God’s words when she laid claim to the forbidden fruit and handed some to her husband. She misused God’s creation and, as her husband’s helper, failed to honor God (Genesis 2:18). Instead, she helped Adam to sin. Thus, sin and shame entered (see Genesis 3). Adam and Eve both desired the stuff (the fruit) more than they desired to honor their Creator.

But what about us? Do we have a God-honoring view of things? Do we desire any thing more than honoring our eternal king?

Jesus diagnoses our disordered view of stuff as a heart issue.

Disordered View of Things

We, too, have a disordered view whenever we place our hope, security, or sense of identity in things.

After thieves stole our belongings, I started buying new beds, couches, dressers, décor, toys, clothes. I hoped my pain would lessen with the power of purchase. It didn’t.

When we try to heal pain with purchase, we just end up with more stuff. In the Gospels, Jesus diagnoses our disordered view of stuff as a heart issue.

When crowds gathered around Jesus in Luke 12, someone shouted at Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus responded by telling the crowd to be on their guard against all kinds of greed, and then he shared an example (Luke 12:1–34). He told about a rich man who gained such an abundance in his harvest that he didn’t know what to do, so he decided to build larger barns to store the grain and then enjoy life, “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But Jesus called this man a fool—for that very night his life would be required of him. Who would enjoy all his abundance then?

Jesus added, “Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:33–34).

In the same passage, Jesus encourages his listeners (and us by extension) to not place our hope in things and thus constantly worry we won’t have enough. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes” (Luke 12:22–23, NIV).

Lessons Learned

My husband and I lived in years of poverty through graduate school—and God provided (but I worried a lot). We lived through losing everything, and God provided (but I worried a lot). We now live in a home filled with things (and sometimes I still worry). Through the years, I’ve learned that when we place our hope or sense of security in things, we rob ourselves of peace.

I’ve also learned that my best treasures on earth were never things but people. My family didn’t need a lot of things to spend a day at the park, splashing in the water fountain. We didn’t need a lot of things to have new friends sit on the back porch to chat for hours. We didn’t need the toys in our lost boxes to enjoy time with our kids.

I’ve also learned that my best treasures on earth were never things but people.

Losing all our belongings taught me that life certainly is not measured by the abundance of our possessions; and our healing, security, and hope can’t be bought in a store or hung on a wall. As the hymnist said, hope is found in nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

Resurrected Belongings

About a year after we last saw the moving truck, I received a phone call from the moving company. They were on their way to deliver our belongings. As soon as the truck pulled up, the drivers tried to coerce more money from us. I called the police, and five officers quickly arrived to demand that the movers unload our belongings.

After they unloaded our boxes and left, I walked down to the basement alone, slit open the first box—and gasped. There he was. My one-eared stuffy from childhood, Safety Bear. I grabbed him, held him to my chest, and cried.

Years Later

My seven-year-old daughter now sleeps with Safety Bear. A friend recently sewed new fuzzy palms and feet on our worn friend. The basement storage is filled with Christmas decorations, and I often step on tiny toy bricks when I enter my son’s room. In the middle of the mess, I now find God working on my heart in an opposite way than when we lost everything.

When the boxes disappeared, I learned that our treasure was not in what we owned but in Christ.

Since our boxes reappeared, I’m learning our belongings are a blessing. Everything good is from God—we received provision when boxes went missing, and we receive provision now that our closets are filled.

Like Paul, I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. . . . I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11–13).

So, when I clean out the garage this fall, as I sort through camping gear and give away outgrown bikes, may I remember this truth: My belongings are a way to honor the Giver by stewarding his stuff. No matter how much or little he’s given me, I just want more of him.