The day I lost 5 years

It happened about a year ago

 It was outside of my power of control and resulted in me losing a lot of items very important to me.

 - About $500+ in music equipment
 - Close to 30 books I had read in college and after
 - About 5-8 years worth of journals I had written
 - A family heirloom

It was very devastating to lose these things. 
Not because of the articles themselves, but because of the time and energy and attention I had sown into them. I had made an album with that equipment, I had spent hours studying and taking notes in those books, and I am quite prolific compared to most, so many ideas and emotions and first reactions and "me" was lost. 

My father's peacoat

Gone.

One minute, your memories have signs, the next they become a breath. 
Some things were immediately painful to lose- all my guitar pedals, my Fender Amp.Others took more like weeks and months until I slowly came into reckoning. I don't have dad's pea coat, nor my journal from my senior year in high school anymore. All these memories I made with items won't ever be recounted. I had built my life on reading, writing, and music. And now.

Where was the foundation?

I think the purpose of this loss was that the Lord had to expose some carnal desires that we all know and understand. Frequently I asked myself, why? First for the obvious, why did this happen to me. But then I was asking the more important question, why do I feel such despair over these things?

Matthew 6:19-21 AMP
19 Do not gather and heap up and store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and worm consume and destroy, and where thieves break through and steal.
20 But gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor worm consume and destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal;
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also

None of these articles had any heavenly importance. 
It is like I had built my castle in the sand and the tide had risen and the waves came and washed away what I had spent so much time building. And I cursed the waves!

But what did I expect? Waves are brought in from the tide. 
It would be easy to resolve, I will take more caution and build more security around the things and people I love so this will not happen again!
But that too would be wasted efforts - Proverbs 16:33 "We roll the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall." If God is even involved in something as seemingly random as throwing dice, wouldn't he have more control over my possessions than I?

And you have to ask, What constitutes castles in the sand?

Well, it is simple. If moth, rust, worm, thieves, and time can destroy, then it is not worth our time and investment. If I am eternal, then I need to build myself on what is eternal. 

If it can be stolen, you can't find any real satisfaction in it. Sure, they may give us pleasures, but they cannot meet what we demand they be.

And now I see this is even true for memories, that is even nostalgia cannot meet the demands we place on it.
But I feel this is another topic altogether.

I learned to stop building my castles in the sand. And to build them somewhere else.