Sometimes, I have to search through all of my thoughts, just to find a story to tell. For years there has been one lying, literally at my feet. I am a collector of old things for I find satisfaction in good stories. My wife is a “clean-a-holic” so some of these “great finds” are not to be seen by the public. There it is, an old wrapping machine that used to sit on some grocery counter, now sits at my feet. Yet, come Christmas, it will be used again. Kathy wraps her own presents before they go into the nice, pretty boxes. This machine is nothing to look at; it doesn’t give out any ooohs or aaws. It is fastened to a wide board because one of it’s support-brackets has broken off. This machine is more than 140 years old. Probably, during the depression years, it took a nosedive off the counter and it had to be repaired. There may not have been any money to buy a new board. So, the repairman gingerly fit two boards together to restore its usefulness. The original board was pine but the added portion was oak – the two don’t match. All these many years, now, it sits at my feet, tucked out of sight, until Christmas. Then, it comes to life, doing what it was meant to do, covering something to protect whatever was inside. This story of the wrapping machine tells us something. Just as the owner repaired this antique, there comes a time when Our owner, God, has to reach down and reconstruct our lives. In that manner we are more worthy of functioning as his child. On our own, we are Spiritually unusable. The Heavenly “repairman” gives us new hope and purpose; just waiting for the day when we leave this world. As broken as we are, we are redeemed, sinful folks, just sitting idle at the feet of the world; until we allow the “Eternal Repairman” to make something of us; helping us to function again through our brokenness. I suppose this antique machine could be melted down and brought back to new condition but the mold is no longer available. So we humans do what we can until the day we have a new body – that is a promise from OUR MAKER. For now, we struggle through the differences until the time we become new in Him.