Be a Jewel

Have you had your 15 minutes of fame yet?  I’m pleased to report that I have had mine.

Thirteen years ago yesterday I discovered a stash of jewels in a Campbell’s mushroom soup can.  To be clear, it was actually a safe in the exact likeness of a soup can, but one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.  Here’s how it happened.

Every May, the community in which I lived at the time has what they call the “Letter Carriers Food Drive,” which is a food collection effort for the local food banks.  Folks leave donations near their mailboxes and the postal workers pick them up as they make their mail deliveries.  The bags and boxes are taken to a centrally-located warehouse, where they are sorted through and sent, over the next several months, to nine different affiliated food banks in the area as needed. I volunteered at one of those food banks.  

Within a couple of weeks of the drive, all nine affiliates were notified that someone had reported they’d accidentally swept their small safe filled with jewelry off their pantry shelf along with actual soup cans and donated it to the cause.  They wanted it back.  All nine distribution centers were asked to be on the lookout; there were television and radio accounts of the loss and newspaper articles.

My thought at the time was, “Talk about a needle in a haystack!  What are the chances?”  Still, I determined to examine every can of Campbell’s mushroom soup that came into my hands and began to do so.

On the morning of July 16, I picked one up – a can in a long line of such cans (a hundred, maybe?  More?) that I’d handled since May.  I gave it the slight shake I had become accustomed to giving the little guys and prepared to set it down again.  But – oh, hey! – this one felt different.  Very. Slightly. Different.  It was.

I looked it over closely.  Turned it upside down.  Shook it again.  I couldn’t immediately see how to get into it, but I knew.

I called the Director and Assistant Director over, as they were both nearby.  Together we figured out how to breach the thing – it simply involved the screwing off of the bottom.  And there they were, in a velvet bag – nine pieces of jewelry.  They were rings, necklaces, and a couple of bracelets.  

You can imagine the joy of the owner of these items – Theresa by name – when she was notified of their discovery.  The central food warehouse and the media wanted her picture taken, at our facility, with me, receiving them back again.  This was done.  There was another newspaper article and interviews on TV and the radio. It was all quite exciting.

The commotion Theresa and I experienced over those jewels in a can isn’t anything compared to the electrifying, spectacular eagerness that Jesus will display coming to claim His jewels.  “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels . . .” (Malachi 3:17, KJV).  Can you imagine?!  It’s what He has been waiting for!  It’s what we have been waiting for!!  It will happen, my friends, and it will be glorious.  And that prospect ought to put joy into our hearts, ought to make the battle manageable.

To find a jewel is one thing.  To be a jewel is quite another.  Be a jewel!