People who grew up in the depression collect all sorts of things. "You never know when hard times will come and we'll need this," they say. When my parents moved off their farm to retire, the farm shop was full of old parts in new boxes. It was dad's practice to put the old part back into the new box after every repair. After all, it still worked a little - didn't it?
The neighbors sure thought we had a well-stocked inventory of spare parts! I grew up down the road from Orson Welles' brother who collected old magazines. He had enough of them to fill his garage; there was no room for his car. As a boy, I was in the used newspaper business and purchased the magazines from Mr. Welles for a sum of $4.00. Imagine that...Mr. Welles left his car outside for about ten years to make $4.00!
I tend to collect things that aren't worth collecting myself. When things get too "piled-up", I get my daughter Connie to help me grub out; she doesn't collect anything. Of course, every time she comes I take a real chance. Once, she threw out my bottle collection! Yet, it is true that we can collect up so much junk that we can't find the "good stuff". The truth is, collecting the wrong things can really cost us in the long run.
There is a kind of collecting we all do that ruins relationships -- hurt collecting. The longer a marriage lasts, the larger the collection can become. Think how many times we are hurt over, say, fifty years! We would have a big collection if we insisted on saving them all.
Obviously people who are successfully married for fifty years figure out how to "take out the trash." Hurt collecting has the effect of keeping us from working on the issue at hand.
If meaningful communication is to occur in a relationship, there must be some method of letting go of hurts and forgiving. With hurt collecting we risk losing all of our good memories and enjoyable times in the jumble.
For this reason, Paul recommends to "Put away from you all bitterness ... and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:31-32). Mentally healthy people know how to start each day with a "clean slate."
You've got to know what to save and what to throw out; some things aren't worth collecting!