Christmas rescue

Overheard this past week in the Laverman house:

Kevin: "Kaori, look at this great labelmaker I picked up for free."

Kaori: "Where'd you get it?"

Kevin: "It was just laying out on the garbage pile."

Kaori: "Garbage pile?!"

Kevin: "Someone just threw it away. I cleaned it up, put in fresh batteries, and it works fine! It even has a label cartridge in it. I wanted one like this."

Kaori: "You picked it up? In Japan, that's called STEALING."

Kevin: "From the garbage pile? To me that's called RESCUING!"

It's amazing the things that one finds disposed of in Japan. Japan's ultra-consumerism generates a lot of recyclable "garbage." Is something a little dirty, a little broken? Out to the garbage it goes! Japanese by in large don't have a repair-and-reuse mentality. A little cleaning, a little fix here or there, and a lot of money can be saved by the handy finder (it turns out I may have been "stealing").

I was broken and dirtied by sin. God had every right to throw me out onto the garbage pile. I am so glad that He chose to send his Son into this world to search, find, cleanup and re-use me. That was the ultimate RESCUE! (And I suppose in a way it was stealing...from Satan).

At Christmastime, thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming down into the garbage pile of this world to reclaim me for your own!