Tonight after the service I went into the church bookstore to look something up. Pastor Sam was talking about Colossians 1, where Paul says he’s trying to “fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.” I remembered from John Piper’s Desiring God that there’s a parallel verse in Philippians 2:30 where it talks about Epaphroditus “filling up what is lacking” in the Philippians’ service to Paul, and he does that by acting as a messenger. But, of course, I couldn’t remember where this was, so I had to go in the bookstore to look it up in Zodhiates’ Word Studies.
So I sat my Bible and my notebook and my pen on the little table in the bookstore, and while I was looking it up, I turned around and saw a guy thumbing through my precious Moleskine notebook. I said, “Hello! That’s personal!” and grabbed it from him. He said, “Sorry, I didn’t know. It was just sitting there…” I suppose he must have thought it was a decoration. But I opened it up, and some other guy had actually written in it! Maybe he thought it was a guestbook like my Mom keeps in her guest room for people to leave nice notes in.
Who raises their kids like this?!?! And they were grown-ups, too! How could they have no concept of ownership?
So, since having “In case of loss, please return to:” along with my name and address on the front page apparently isn’t enough to justify my ownership of my own notebook, I’ve had to add the following on the second page:
THIS IS NOT YOURS! PLEASE PUT IT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT. DO NOT READ IT. IF THE NOTEBOOK APPEARS TO BE LOST, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT IT BE RETURNED TO ME. MY NAME AND ADDRESS ARE ON THE FIRST PAGE.
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