Tammy, my seven-year-old, collects teddy bears. And stuffed bunnies. And Disney
characters. And cuddly amphibians. And all sorts of foam-filled and straw-stuffed friends.
Her room is stuffed with stuffed creatures.
I spent hours attaching Velcro pieces to the strings of stuffed silken balloons which
hang on her wall. I sewed the other halves of the Velcro pieces to the backs of Tammy's
animals.
When I finished, I stuck the toys on the balloon strings and viola! An adorable,
organized and out-of-the-way arrangement for much of her menagerie.
"Now whenever you want to play with one," I told Tammy as I proudly showed
her my handiwork, "all you have to do is pull it off. When you're done with it, hang
it back up."
One by one Tammy plucked off each animal. One by one they did not go back up onto the
balloon strings. They got tucked under the covers with Tammy at night. So now the fabric
zoo is a mountain.
When I bend over to kiss Tammy goodnight I have to dig through the stuffed animals.
Does she have enough? Of course not! They're treasures. Does she ever want to use the
Velcro? Why would she? Her treasures are useless if she can only look at them.
Imagine God has Velcro in heaven that his angels have sewn carefully onto His
equivalent of balloon strings. Each time we store up a treasure by doing a good deed or
suffering through persecution or earning God's rewards in some way, He attaches our
treasures to the strings hanging on the walls of our future heavenly mansions.
Maybe God and the angels admire them and say, "Ahh, what a nice collection."
The day will come when we see what we've collected. And when that happens, would we
want to leave them hanging on the wall?
I guess that's why, when Tammy begs me for yet another stuffed creature, it's hard for
me to say no. Her abundance of soft toys reminds me of how many treasures I hope I'm
adding to my heavenly collection.
At least that's my excuse.
