When losing someone you love there comes the very painful task of what to do with their belongings. Thankfully mom can take her time with most decisions. In order for dad’s church he pastored to be able to move on, the cleaning of dad’s office at the church was of top priority. Having a day off the week after his death I had the availability to help my mother with this daunting task. Memories flooded my mind of all the moves my dad had helped me with over the years as I traveled to his church. He had helped my sister and I through our college years move in and out of dorm rooms. As a young adult moving to my second apartment my dad sheepishly mentioned that he really did not want to help me move again anytime soon. At the age of twenty-four I told him that I would only move if I were getting married or by the time I turned thirty I was going to buy my own home. A year later from that time I was engaged to my soon to be husband Mike. In less than two years, yes, he was helping during a move yet again. He has always been there with every move of ours, painting, assembling furniture, and selflessly helping anyway he could. When my grandfather died, my dad’s father, I can remember sitting on the back steps of my grandparent’s home. Dad was sweeping the carport for grandma and my grandpa’s shed was directly attached to the carport. As a young boy one of my dad’s chores was to clean and organize my grandpa’s shed. As I sat on those steps I noticed water drops splashing onto the concrete underneath the carport. My eyes panned up my dad’s tall frame to see him leaning onto the broom handle with his face planted on top of his hands. He had started to sob in grief as he remembered the significance of cleaning his father’s shed once again. Well here I was helping with my father’s final move in his years of ministry. He had already mentioned to mom that if anything happened to him to just throw out all of his files upon files of sermons. In later years he had started to save them into the computer, but with thirty-seven years in the ministry the amount of sermons, funerals, weddings, and special programs was still a vast amount. Knowing that it would not be possible to actually read through every one of them I knew that was the only realistic thing that could be done with them. Being logical still didn’t help with the pain of seeing the hours and years of his work go into the dumpster. God started to press on my heart that those sermons are actually everlasting. The ears that heard and took those words God gave dad to heart changed lives and that could never be thrown away, burned, or destroyed. My father was my pastor for twenty-one years of my life and though he probably did not think I listened, I did. Those sermons were investments dad made into my eternity as well as so many others. The eternal perspective has taken such precedence in my life now more than ever before. Everlasting investments have become top priority. Galatians 6:8 “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” So much of our activities in life are so fleeting. Any work we do on our homes, our yards will just need to be done again. Money spent on material things is fleeting. Money given to missions, ministries, and the needy is everlasting. What we do for others by lending a helping hand, praying for, and sometimes an encouraging smile or word is what is eternal. Lord I pray that you will use my life for the things that are eternal.