A man’s riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat. (Proverbs 13:8)

I have been reading and meditating through the Proverbs for a while now. I read this one this morning, and it made me smile. It reminds me of a really important experience I had and lesson I learned when I lost most of my jewelry.

If you were to look at me most days, I might have a necklace on, I won’t be wearing earrings (the holes keep closing up), and I’ll be wearing my plain gold wedding band. When I’m dressed up, I’ll have on a necklace, and I will have added a ruby ring to my right hand. That’s it. I’m not big on jewelry.

But my MOM…she had some beautiful jewelry, and I inherited some of it. Made of gold and precious stones, these pieces had monetary value, but they were also dripping with sentimental value. My dad made them. He was a jeweler. I also had some sentimental and valuable pieces of my own (including the pearls my husband gave me for a wedding gift!).

It was all together, carefully stored in a gallon zip-loc bag (yeah, that’s right…brilliant). When we moved, somehow it disappeared. I was sick and heartbroken about it. I tore the house apart looking for it, and even questioned whether a very nice air conditioning guy might have taken it. It took me a year to finally accept that it was gone. I grieved. And I found this very strange freedom – a sense that with all of my most-valuable stuff gone, it didn’t matter if a thief came in and took everything. All of my most valued possessions were already gone! There was no threat.

So we may feel secure or happy with our riches, having a sense that they can get us out of any jam we may be in, that they somehow protect us, or give us comfort, but I smile to think of the freedom I felt without them. I even felt bad about feeling so good.

This story ends with my mother-in-law finding all of my jewelry – on my birthday! – stashed in her closet, where she forgot she had put it when I gave it to her for safe-keeping during our move. I was so happy to be reunited with it, but I had a strange sense of let-down…a sense that it was a kind of burden. Once again, I had to be afraid of the thief…