The contents of his pocket

At five years old, he always kept a piece of string in the pocket of his well-worn, too short pants. You never know when you will come upon an unlucky frog to tie up at your side. When he turned eight, he abandoned his string for coins, mini flashlights, sharpies, lead pencils, erasers, each of them getting replaced by the other due to unfortunate discovery by his hawk-eyed teacher. He needed something to pass the time as well-intentioned words buzzed overhead and around his ear. With his entrance into the no-man’s land that is the teenage years, he did away with childish things and padded his pocket with his father’s old wallet. Inside he kept his credit card (expired last year) seven one dollar bills, and arcade coins that clinked with a hollowness that you don’t hear from quarters.

While his friends were busy chasing girls, scrambling to finish their blank homework pages, and anxiously wondering about their future, he was comforting his mother and caring for his brother as the image of his father took up the place of the long discarded credit card. Behind it, he scribbled down the words, “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain…,” wondering at the mystery that his father would consider death a gain.

Walking now with purpose and new direction, he filled his pocket with index cards and the conviction that the words he copied down were the words of life.
Pulling out a humble ring accompanied by a nervous flutter, he bent down on one knee, preparing himself to serve, love, and lead.
He made sure to prepare his pocket with a handkerchief, to show her chivalry of course, but when the moment came, she pulled it out of his hand and wiped his tears.
Too busy to even sit down, his pockets again filled with string, gum wrapper, toy cars. He had to keep his index cards in his shirt pocket, and a yellowed, tattered Book on his desk.
The Book kept him through times of weakness, times of sin; it was his companion when he bowed his head in praise and in repentance; seasons of rejoicing, seasons of mourning, when his heart ached to see his children rebel, when his eyes closed with weariness from living in a sin-filled world, a sin-filled heart. It was his constant, his current, his guide to the Guide,

Old and feeling useless, he filled his mind with a longing for Home. But his Master is wise, and left him here in His mysterious way. He filled his pocket with unfamiliar faces and unfamiliar names, and an indication that this was his daughter, this one his son, this one his nephew, this favored, dear one his wife. Though his mind betrayed him and his body shut down, his soul, through years of practice, reached heavenward in faithful words of prayer, until his eyes closed to this world and opened in the new.

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