“Please promise us you will give him a good home,” we urged the adopter of our sweet bunny rabbit. Tears streamed down our cheeks as we watched Copper go through the door to be with another family. We felt this same emotion throughout the weekend of our recent estate sale as we watched our “life” go out the door with each paying customer. Paintings from walls. Furniture from floors. Utensils from drawers. Every piece had an origin and a memory stamped onto its surface. 

Every aspect of this experience was humbling and emotional for us. Selling the couch stained with our daughter’s “art project,” giving away the recliner I nursed all my babies in, releasing the coffee table with chipped paint and coffee cup stains where Doug had done his quiet time every morning. I could still see the indention of his writings in the paint as I watched it leave the house. 

“So what do you want for this? What is your price?” The questions kept coming at me and I never really had a good answer. How do you put a price on your life? How do you measure your memories in dollars and cents?

Before the estate sale opened, we looked at all our things set up in one room and thought, “This is it? Twelve years together and this is all we have? Will anyone even want these tired old things?”

Then, it happened. Our tired trash became treasure to others and left in bags with strangers, friends, and family. Items dwindled and at the end of three days, an empty house remained, leaving us equally empty — emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The sound of our voices echoed off the empty walls; the place we had called our cozy home became a shell full of memories.

On our last day there, the time came to say goodbye. This empty house once held unlimited promise six years before. Now, the 100-year-old floorboards were time stamped with our DNA. We had left our mark on this old place. We lingered in the living room, silently scanning the now vast space. We held each other and prayed, somehow trying to delay leaving. This was not a normal move to another house. This move of faith required strength greater than our own. In that moment, we couldn’t seem to move a step. 

Then the words of Jesus poured into our hearts. “Anyone who gives up his home, brothers, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, or property, to follow Me, shall receive a hundred times as much in return, and shall have eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

The reality of what God has called us to is this: We are not letting go of a life, but rather, we are daring to trust that God will provide another one that is deeper, richer, harder, even more refining than we have ever known! He is calling us to embrace a life of sacrifice and uncertainty — for His glory, with our eyes on the priceless gift of eternal life with Him. With palms up to heaven, we will remember and appreciate the old but embrace the new. God is all about new life. Nothing in our hands we bring, simply to the cross we cling.

Doug and Amy are disciple-makers preparing to serve in Italy.