Some Things Aren't Meant To Be Thrown Away

It occurs to me that we throw a lot of good stuff away.

I mean, I have always wondered where my great grandmother’s spectacles are today. A pair of glasses plainly sets on the bridge of her nose in that old photograph on my mantle. Or for that matter, what ever became of my dad’s sailor suit; the one he so proudly wore in a picture snapped in WWII?

What treasures! Consigned to the garbage heap, I suppose.

Speaking of the garbage heap, there’s a story which ran on a local television broadcast today about some twirp who dropped several newborn puppies in a plastic bag, sealed it, and dropped it in a dumpster. A couple of deputies discovered their mother frantically clawing at the top of the garbage bin, and stopped and barely managed to rescue the puppies before they suffocated. Mother and children are doing well now. Thank you.

And admittedly, there are some things which deserve to be consigned to the garbage heap. I found one of those things today. I mow a strip of grass near my  home where neighborhood dog owners walk their, well, dogs. Today I noticed something totally out of place in that setting. Some, well twirp is still a good word, dropped off a dilapidated old television in the ditch which borders one side of the pathway.

I mean, c’mon guys.

But I think examples such as these provide us a lesson in the fine art of relationships. (For it is, indeed, an art form).

Jesus knew the pain of failed relationships.

There was a time when some of his outer circle chose to depart. And his resulting question to “the 12” is heart-rending.

“Will you also go away?”

Of course, Christ was ultimately betrayed by Judas, His double-minded treasurer, and pain beyond pain, as He suffered on the cross, our Lord experienced the temporary loss of relationship with His Heavenly Father; as He asked an even more desperate question than the previous one.

“My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?”

As a professor, counselor, mentor and friend, I have experienced the pain of failed relationships. And to put it in the vernacular,

“It ain’t fun.”

The pain resulting from relationships which go bad, without any explanation or understanding, can be excruciating, and difficult to overcome.

Some things just aren’t meant to be thrown away.

 

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 6