My wallet is full of them. There’s more of them than money to be honest.
Not moths as my wife might comment: Cards!
Membership cards, loyalty cards, points cards, stamp cards, lots of them.
And they tell a story of two things –
If there’s something free that you can get then I’ll work for it.
I’m part of many different things and have evidence to show my support for them in some way.
Some of them I have for other people – McDonald’s hot drink cards get filled and when they are full they get given to people living on the streets.
Some of the them are for me – museum memberships or our Tesco loyalty card that gets us money off family meals out once in a while.
But all of them come with me and are testament to me and my life choices.
But during lockdown I added a new one. I designed it myself and had lots printed and sent to me.
It speaks of my identity and my work and church family – let’s call it my business card.
On one side it tells of church and my place in East Greenwich.
And on the other it speaks of the Federation Family that I joined a year ago.
I wonder what loyalties you carry around with you? Do they speak of your love for the things that are important to you?
Every so often I need to go through and slim down the things I carry around in order not to burden myself.
At the end of a school year, many of us have that opportunity to slim down the baggage we will take away, consider the memories we will hold onto and recommit to carrying some for a bit longer.
And I wondered if the way we decide on our loyalties and memberships have ways of helping us with bigger decisions too:
Do they work for us or do they weigh us down?
Do they bring joy to someone – do they bring light to my life?
Do I need it? Or does someone else need me to have it? And am I the right person to be carrying it?
What would it be like if I didn’t carry it for a while?
And whilst we are about it…
Am I really loyal to these things? If someone saw my loyalties would I be like Peter and deny it or like Stephen and stand by it?
As the ‘lasts’ of this year start happening…last meetings, last days, last reports, last tasks…consider what you are carrying and be unafraid to pass them on. Jesus says take my yolk for it is light and my burden is easy. Or as the song professes ‘Cast your burdens onto Jesus, for He cares for you’. And if you want some help putting them down then I’m here to help.
Have a good weekend and I will see you next week one last time before we gather again in September.