Do you have any trophies?   When my boys were kids they won a few trophies; there were Little League trophies and bowling trophies.   Each one was decorated with gold plastic, but at the time they symbolized an accomplishment.  

We don’t have to be kids to clutch our trophies.   Maybe it was an honor awarded in college, new title at work, moving into the house of our dreams.   Are they really any different than the plastic trophies won by the kids?  They’re all status symbols that say we have arrived, we have achieved.  Nothing wrong with setting goals and working towards them, but achieving that mile-marker never seems to make us complete.  There’s always another trophy to aspire to.

Ah, I thought, but I’ve retired.  I’ve left all that stuff behind me.  Maybe, maybe not.  Am I tempted to use my kids and grandkids as my newest trophies?  Am I just a little “too anxious” to share their latest accomplishments?   Of course, we’re proud of them, as well we should be. But, do we somehow feel more successful if we raised kids who have “made it” in the world.  Is it a new “feather in our cap” as the saying goes.  There it is, another trophy.

When at last “I lay down all of my trophies,” these worldly status symbols won’t mean a thing.   Our egos won’t matter, there will be no bragging rights.   We’ll exchange them some day for a crown, an exchange that’s promised by our God of unconditional love.

“So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.”*

Judy

* The Old Rugged Cross, George Bernard, written in 1913.