Hidden values

“You never know until you go.”  That’s the slogan my husband uses a lot in his hobby of going to yard sales.  He typically finds bikes and mowers to clean up, fix and re-sell.  But I doubt if he will ever match the surprises reported in one internet article.
*A decorative egg found in a flea market was made of gold so a bit pricey at $14,000. But it proved to be a Faberge Egg, an Easter gift from a Russian czar to his wife in 1887, thought lost. The winning auction bid: $33 million.
*An old Flemish painting in an old frame, $3 at a thrift store in South Carolina. Proven to have been produced around 1650, it was auctioned at $190,000.
*Two of the 24 original copies of the Declaration of Independence surfaced.  One, found in pristine condition hidden behind a painting bought for $4 at a Pennsylvania  thrift shop, fetched $2.4 million. Another came off somebody’s garage wall during a “clutter” purge, was bought for $2.48 at a Tennessee thrift store, and fetched $477,650 at an auction.
*A sweater bought for a dollar at a Tennessee thrift store had a clue inside: a nametag that said “Vince Lombardi,” the legendary football coach. It auctioned for $43,020.
*A piece of jewelry purchased at a Philadelphia flea market brought its owner lots of compliments. Then she learned it had been made by famed American sculptor Alexander Calder, and was once displayed at the New York Museum of Modern Art.  It sold to Christie’s for $267,750.
*An abstract painting donated to a church yard sale in North Carolina got no takers, so ended up at a local Goodwill. A local artist stopped in the store for a blanket and noticed it, thinking she could repurpose the canvas for her own zany-cat paintings. A friend suggested she research the artist’s name, “Illya Bolowsky,” found to be a giant of abstract art.  Titled “Vertical Diamond,” it brought $34,375 at auction.

THE NEED IS THERE

When I go along to yard sales, I’m not out for auction-worthy items. I look for simple things: fabric scraps, batting, yarn.  These I transform into baby blankets that I give hospital obstetrics departments to distribute to the “very needy,” as they see fit. I started this project some six years ago after learning how many “very poor” show up to give birth.  One nurse remarked recently as I left several blankets, “We’re having more and more homeless come in.”  At another hospital, a nurse pulled a blue blanket from the middle of the stack I’d just brought in and said, “This will go home with a baby boy tomorrow.”  Well, not home, she added.  Foster care.  Another nurse told of giving a blanket to a woman who came in alone to deliver her fifth baby, crying through the whole process.  There was a language barrier, too. The nurse just gave her one of my blankets as encouragement in this unexplained but traumatic situation.

Though I’ve found “blanket makings” at yard sales and thrift stores, I’ve also been blessed by people who just gave me fabric and batting. One woman and her mother brought me a huge box of serger cone thread in various colors. Some have just given me gift cards to a fabric store. One gift card (from two people) was for $100.  It took my breath away. Every time I swiped that card to buy remnants or on-sale items, I silently said, “Thank you, Lord.  Bless them.”

About a month ago I posed my two older grandsons with the latest “stash” of just-sewn blankets. As infants they got their own specially Nana-sewn blankets. But these will go to a local hospital to bless babies I will never meet. But God knows them.  So far, the blanket project stands at 838. I never know who eventually gets them. But the babies they will warm: priceless.My role model for doing this, a lady in Proverbs 31:She selects wool and flax [or juvenile print flannels!] and works with eager hands...She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. (vv. 13, 20)