05/06/2026
The Purpose of an Ice-cream Tub
by Heather Biggs
Grace and peace to you!
Ethan and I have been unpacking into our new spot over the last couple of weeks. We have been joyfully organising our new and shiny wedding presents, scheming over how to fit all the Tupperware into one cupboard and painstakingly going through old boxes of our belongings from when we were still in Pretoria.
I have found old, repurposed Nutella jars filled with fairy lights and leaking batteries from loadshedding days. Piles of linen for a duvet 2 sizes smaller than ours now. Plastic “microwave proof” lunchboxes that clearly, were never meant for cooking. Old pots with broken lids and ice cream tubs with mismatched lids. Not to mention the plethora of varsity notes and little bits of memorabilia that I’ve never quite figured out what to do with.
The number 1 question as we go through the boxes is, “Do we really need this?” A lot of the stuff is still in good nick, but we either have something better now, or we just don’t need it anymore. It has served its purpose and the only reason I was holding onto it, was the nostalgia. Every burnt microwave lunchbox has a story, and I still remember who gave me the plastic tub of wine gums that was repurposed into my breakfast cereal jar.
It’s hard to let go of things, especially when the people saying they need to go, don’t really understand why you want to keep them. I think the reason I want to hold onto so much of the stuff is the good memories associated with each thing. There is a fear that throwing something out will lead to the memory fading. There’s also the feeling of betraying my past self, by letting go of the things I valued back then. I have come to associate things with stages of my life, and throwing them away feels a bit like disregarding the value that stage of life had… I am typing this up on a dreary rainy morning, so clearly the weather is making me pensive! Here I am having an identity crisis after sifting through just 10 years of jumble. I’m not looking forward to facing this decision again every time we move, but with more and more nostalgic bric-a-brac!
Slowly we are making progress though. The wine gum tub has gone on to be someone else’s cereal jar, or more likely, a new plastic park bench. There is a neat little box of things destined for the White Elephant stall at the fete. And all the boxes have been folded up and sent off before either Ethan or I could say, “That is a nice box for storage!” Almost everything has been cleared out. (Don’t tell Ethan, but I snuck the best of the ice-cream tubs back into the Tupperware cupboard. You can never have too many ice-cream tubs.)
In Confirmation last weekend, we spoke about God’s guidance and the idea of having a purpose. We talked about how someone doesn’t have just one purpose. How a person can have something that they might work at for many years, or a cause that you could dedicate yourself to. When you tie “achieving your purpose in life” to the success or failure of a goal, it can be daunting. This is especially true when you come to the end of your time working on that goal and don’t feel you completed it. Dedicating hours of life to a thing, doesn’t mean it’s your “purpose” though.
Going through the tubs from varsity, I am seeing how much stuff was repurposed. The winegum tub to cereal container. The cereal box to spice rack. The storage tubs themselves becoming dining tables, side tables or even chairs. After and in between each item’s “ideal main purpose” it was often used for something entirely different. It might be used for it’s original purpose again, but ultimately it was me who decided it’s real purpose.
In our Confirmation class, we decided that it is not one purpose that each of us has, but just continuing to exist each day, to interact with each other gives us purpose. Your purpose today could be to give financial advice that saves someone hundreds of thousands of rands. Or it could be to smile at a stranger, who really needed to be seen. Your purpose is to follow God’s guidance and live as He leads. It can be crushing to wonder what your purpose is and try figure out how to live your life to best achieve it. Or worse, to fear that you can never achieve it because of past mistakes.
One of my favourite verses, is a simple statement from a prophet detailing all that God expects of us: Micah 6:8. God speaks through Micah asking His people why they are feeling burdened? He reminds them of the great acts He did for them. He reminds them to rely on Him. God lists the things we try to do to appease Him. Then God gives Micah a short list. All that God really requires of us, all that we need to do to figure out our very many purposes in life is:
“To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Much love in Christ
Heather B
