Old? New? Who's to say?

Our house is a strange mixture of old and new. In our kitchen are bags filled with boxes containing new dishes, kitchen appliances, and more—all wedding gifts—which I’m unclear about where they’ll go or how they’ll fit! In the garage are boxes of my husband’s old stuff. His track and field jacket from high school, for example. And in efforts of making room for him, I came across my old graphing calculator (Do you know how bulky those things are?!) and dusty cassette tapes that my aunt used to make and send to me when I was a little girl. Then in contrast is a bright, shiny new copper bowl sitting on our kitchen table—a wedding gift said to remind us in the future that if not taken care of, a marriage will tarnish.

This mixture of old and new has raised questions and instigated discussions about what’s worth keeping and what should be thrown away. What has worth and merit. What doesn’t.

This then got me thinking about when things become “old.” Where is the line that once crossed means something is no longer “new”? When does a new house become an old house?At what point did my cool, new graphing calculator become bulky and uncool? When will our new food processor become just our food processor? And then at what point do we start referring to it as a wedding gift that we’ve had for so many years (meaning it's old)?

I don’t know. But in church on Sunday pastor made the comment that we all remain saints and sinners. At the same time. A strange mix of old and new.

In 2 Corinthians 5: 17-21, Paul writes: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come...We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us...Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

We may be old and sinful, but God--thanks to Jesus--deems us new. Forever. Always. Consistently. At no point does he think we've become old and bulky or meritless. So, I think "old" and "new" is not so much about the object as it is about the owner. And when God owns you, you're always new (even though you're old).

For the record, I got rid of the graphing calculator and kept my aunt's cassette tapes. Pretty sure that track and field jacket is still laying around though.