When Stuff Is Stuff

Today was the estate auction for my great grandmother, the whole reason I'm even in Iowa. So we were all there bright and early. I looked around some and saw two things that I wanted. So I asked my mom to buy them for me. A stereoscope and a little hangy thing for my room. As I kept looking around, I found a few other cute little things that I wouldn't mind having either. After about three hours of being there, the action finally started.

And it seemed like the things I wanted weren't even being sold yet. (It ended up being a nine hour long auction. And I admit, I did fall asleep for some of it.) But then they started putting up some of the things that I had kind of wanted, nothing very important though. Each time I would sit there and listen as other people placed their bids as the auctioneer just kept mumbling on and on into higher and higher numbers. When the numbers finally stopped shooting up, he would repeat it over and over again till he'd yell "SOLD". So I would then watch him hand away my great-grandmother's stuff. And that made me mad. What gave this other person, who didn't even know her, who couldn't possibly have the same respect for it, permission to have it.
But you know what. She had every right to have it.
Why?

Because she bought it.

She bought an item. She bought an invaluable little thing.
And I was really the winner. Cause I got the memories. At no charge.
John 15:19 says:
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
God has personally chosen me to have something so much greater, so great that the world cannot steal it from me. And that's my everlasting memories. When this world is over, when life comes to an end, all those other people will have is dust. Dust left from the ashes of their once precious items.
Now I'm most definitely not saying that things are useless (I did after all end up with the two things I had really wanted.) but their not everything. And of course I'm not saying the people at the auction house were horrible people destined to hell for buying my great grandmothers stuff. All I'm saying is, material things are just that, material.