Throw Away Value

Everyone has a reason to be here or God wouldn’t have put you here.

 

 

Often, we learn best from things that seem most unpleasant.  For me, cigarette butts have great throw away value.  Allow me to share a few examples.

Over four years ago I had the honor of cleaning up the church parking lot after my brother-in-law’s funeral.  Truly it was a lesson straight from heaven.  Many people had come to pay their last respects to my thirty eight year old, brother-in- law, Ed, who had just passed away from brain cancer.  Though he put up a valiant fight it was a painfully sad and hard day when we had to say goodbye for now.

As a result the church parking lot was littered with cigarette butts.  Many of the butts I picked up were half smoked, either due to grief or the unpleasant rainy conditions.  However, it seemed an appropriate tribute for a man so many loved and would miss so deeply. If grief were measured by cigarette butts, on a scale of one to ten, it would have been an eleven.

My earliest memories of cigarette smoking come from my childhood. To the best I can recall, my grandfather smoked cigarettes since he was a young man.  He never could kick the habit, even after he had a heart attack that nearly killed him twenty five years prior.  My grandfather was far from a weak man, yet it taught me how powerful an addiction cigarette smoking can have on people.

Throughout the years society has seemingly made it tough on smokers.  To begin with the prices are outrageously higher now.  Gone are the days of fifty cent cigarette packs back in the nineteen seventies.  Now you even have to go outside to smoke whether at work or at leisure.  Gone are the days when my grandfather would smoke in his Plymouth Fury, with the windows up.  Now second hand smoke is all the rage.

Often while driving on the highway I have noticed the litany of discarded cigarette butts strewn on the roadside.  These butts remind me of the mess I see when I look around in life, people hurting other people with what appears great malice.  I once heard that anger is just frustrated love. 

In 1970 the Surgeon General issued this warning to the public on all cigarette packs: Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health. Life should have a similar warning that comes with it: Life may be hazardous to your mental and physical health and most certainly will cause great pain.  Many of us, if not all have felt like those discarded cigarette butts on the highway, yet are incapable of fixing the condition.  Although most of us won’t admit it, from time to time, most of us lose our way.   

This reminds me of a difficult memory from about thirteen years ago.  It was the day after my seven year old daughter, Alisha, had died in a hospital hours away from home.  In an attempt to escape reality I found myself in a convenience store.  For some odd reason the sight of people buying cigarettes, newspapers and other such items triggered a frustration deep inside me.  Quickly I chose to leave the store before I began to scream at someone over something they had no control over. 

 In my befuddled state I just couldn’t understand how everyone else could just continue with life like nothing happened.  In many ways I felt like a cigarette butt that had just been smoked and thrown to the roadside.  No one seemed to care about my plight.  Mind you, it wasn’t their fault, they were just going about their day, like we all do.   How did I know that they had been through a similar heartache?  The truth is I didn’t.  But pain tends to look around for sympathy and when it doesn’t receive it, it lashes out in anger.

This verse from Matthew comes to mind when I consider people who seem to have given up and are difficult to deal with in life.  Jesus said “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” In God’s eyes we are never out of reach; never just cast aside; never a lost cause.  In turn, we should be on the lookout for any opportunity  to extend  mercy to those in desperate need of it.

Each soul is hand crafted by the Almighty and should be treated as such.

Swavel