My Life Fits in a Box

“My Life Fits in a Box”

Last night, one of my older brothers, Matt, came by my apartment to drop off some boxes to store at my house until he can move into his next apartment. In all, there are only about five or six boxes downstairs, much less than I would have had I been moving boxes to his house (my books alone usually take about 6 boxes). But something he said just before he left struck me as either unexpectedly insightful or somewhat disappointing…and this is what he said:

“After packing up, I looked around, and I thought, My life fits in a box”

After he said this, I looked up to see him scan over the raggedy things, and I smiled and commented that that would make a great title for a short story just before he closed the door and left. And then I sat there. I sat and wondered over what he had just stirred in me… “my life fits in a box”. I changed the channel back to the lifetime movie. “my life fits in a box.” I went upstairs and proceeded to brush my teeth, practice on my new violin a bit, and then eventually made it to bed. “My life fits in a box”.

What does it mean to me? My life fits in a box…resaid: “I have so little things that I can fit them all in a box…” or “my entire human existence, my entire existence is in that box” or “My life is so pathetic and I am such a tiny speck on this planet, that my life would fit into a box” or maybe “My life is so predictable and straightforward that my life fits in a neatly, packaged box until unpacked in the next scheduled existence which takes place at the end of this week in a new apartment.”

The point is that my brother made a HUGE discovery completely by accident
..and that is that our lives…our memories…are able to be packed into a box.


A box, A box of all thing…A small, wimpy, brown box; a box that’s taped up and so easily moved from one location to the next. A thing that everyone can relate to, because at some point, everyone has gone to a dumpster or to their closet to find shoved at the bottom or in the corner, brown boxes that they can fit their things into. I don’t have anything against boxes…but when Matt said “my life fits into a box”…I was highly offended when for the most part, it’s true. My life (my pictures, and books, and clothes, and food, and utensils, and those towels that my mom hate because their too fat) fits into a box. Everything that I have ever deemed valuable…and “would save if there were a fire” goes into something that is found in a dumpster, is cheap and easy to find, disposed of the second I unpack my valuables, and will eventually be used again when I have to pack my life for a new move.

Matt basically said, “My life fits into the same thing that everyone else’s life fits into…and my life, because it can fit into such a generic mold…seems pointless”

That’s why “my life fits in a box” kept repeating in my head long after it was said. Because he didn’t say it with enthusiasm…or with disinterest; he said it as if it was the world’s deepest, and darkest secret. His life fit into a box. His human existence fit into a box. A small, brown, taped, box. And who could blame him for sounding so depressed when he said it. It’s quit disheartening when you realize the only difference between someone dead and alive is that you’re still able to pack your things into corrugated fiberboard, and move them about, rather than have them decay in someone’s attic.

And when I woke up this morning, I was still thinking about what he said just last night because I would never choose to have my life fit into a box. I want my life to fit into a museum, or a library, but I never ever want my life to be summed up in a box.

And it hit me…. “my life fits into a box….” But really I would like to say,

“My life is so extraordinary and so in tune with God that my life can’t be measured, my life is not generic, my life does not fit into some crappy box, because everything I find valuable and everything that exist in me and for me can’t be put into a box..because it doesn’t get stored away when I die…No, it gets unpacked when I die…

I realized, really realized, that on earth…our lives are summed up by boxes. We fit what we think is most valuable into them, and we cart them around, and we unpack them and we repeat this process over and over and over….just like everyone else we know does. And all the while, we are so proud when we unpack the photo album of us spring 2007 or when we see our beautiful bound books or when we take out our mother’s favorite china, but when matt said, “My life fits into a box,” it didn’t ring with “look at my wonderful things,” because unknown to him he said… “My life as a human goes in a box, and that’s all, and these things in these boxes, that’s all…that’s all there is to life”

But I don’t want a “just all” life. I don’t want to live to collect things to be packed into boxes. I want to collect things that are stored in Heaven, and things that aren’t so predictable.
I don’t know about you but predictability depresses me. When I act predicable or look predictable or have things that are predictable, that just means that my life looks just like everyone elses…so I think what bothered me most about “my life fits into a box,” is that my life does “fit into a box,” and when I move, I’ll be using boxes, and that makes me highly predicable.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Mathew 6:19-21

Now that rings with promise in my ears…no boxes, nope Heaven. A life stored within pearly gates, and a life revolving around the creator of the Universe, that’s a life that doesn’t look predictable. That’s a life that not about things but it’s about God, and it’s about being more than just a silly human that collects things, but a human that lives a life of promise and hope to gain things that he cannot lose.

It just crossed my mind that God probably looks at us like we look at those people on those hoarding shows. We watch and we think, “Why in the world would they keep all of that stuff…its stupid and pointless.” Hahaha....and then we probably think, “they need to go get some boxes to store that stuff,” which just proves the fact that it’s worthless.

So the point of this is that, your life doesn’t have to just fit in a box. Your life is not just a box you pack up and carry with you until you die. Your life was intended to be a unique gift, and a promise for things like joy, and happiness, and peace, and of course the struggles that come along with being a follower of Christ, but…having meaning in one’s life is not one of those struggles, its one of those gifts.

And lucky for you..this gift comes in a Savior, not in a box…