Have you ever noticed that when something is hard to come by, it becomes valuable?
Take, for example, former Major League star Honus Wagner. According to Wikipedia, Wagner played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was known as "The Flying Dutchman.” His baseball card was designed and issued by the American Tobacco Company (ATC) from 1909 to 1911 as part of its T206 series. What many do not know is that Wagner refused to allow the production of his baseball card to continue, either because he did not want children to buy cigarette packs to get his card or because he wanted more compensation from the ATC. Therefore, the ATC ended production of the Wagner card, and only 50 to 200 cards were ever distributed to the public.
Nobody would ever argue that Wagner was the greatest ballplayer ever to walk the diamond, yet, someone paid 7.2 million dollars for one of his difficult-to-find baseball cards.
Why would someone do this? The answer is that the Honus Wagner card is extremely rare. When something is hard to come by, difficult to find, or out of your reach...the value always goes UP.
Speaking of rarity, I recently was made aware of some statistics related to children and parenting that I was unaware of. 75% of the time you’ll ever get to spend with your kids is over by the time they turn 12. 90% of your time with them is gone by the time they’re 18.
Currently, I have an 8-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter, so those stats stopped me in my tracks. A pit developed in my stomach, and I started looking for a magic wand to stop time. I immediately thought of those Facebook posts that occur at the end of a child’s senior year shared by their parents. You know, the ones I mean… a picture of a five-year-old getting on the big yellow school bus on the first day of kindergarten. Big smiles. Hair combed perfectly. Giant backpack and lunch in hand. Right next to that picture is a current picture of that same child all grown up, ready to head to college. (Insert tears).
After the kids went to bed, those statistics led me to peruse the years of memories we had made. Thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos that ranged from common everyday activities to milestones. In the pictures, the kids were so little, so dependent … so present. Seemingly every picture had the kids at just arm's length away from Dad. In those pictures, I looked at all those “messes” in the playroom that at the time, frustrated me. I saw the food all over their clothes as they sat and ate their grandma's homemade sauce.
I admit that this was difficult, as it reminded me that the above statistics are not only true, they are currently unfolding at a rate that makes me uncomfortable as I write this. The Greeks had a term for this, nostalgia. Two Greek words make up this term: nostos (return) and algos (pain). The idea is as follows, the suffering evoked by the desire to return to one's place of origin. As much as we would like to stop time, we do not possess the power to do so. Life moves only in one direction, and that is forward. We cannot return. We can only reminisce. We can look back with perspective on the gifts that God provided for us. Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us of this, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
I do a lot of visiting, and during those visits, folks at the later stage of life always reminisce. They tell stories of life while they were young, how they met their spouse, and trips that they took with the family. It usually ends with a half-joking comment as they look into the distance and say, “How did everything go so fast .” I recall something my dad used to say while I was growing up, “Son, the days are slow, but the years are fast.” When I was growing up, I never understood what he meant. Now, as an adult with little children, I not only understand it, I feel it.
Remember Honus Wagner’s baseball card and why it sold for over 7 million dollars?
It did so because of how rare it is.
Rare things are costly.
Rare things are precious.
A prayer:
Lord, teach us to number our days so we may grasp what is of true value.
