The op shop is unique in that you can walk into a room—sometimes a small one—and find something for every life stage, from baby cots to tennis racquets to walking frames. Having op shopped since I was a child, starting off in the toy corner, I now find myself in crockery and clothing and am already casting glances at the gardening books and sensible hats. Maybe it’s the mothballs making me heady, but I get a thrill when I walk into an op shop. Unlike a department store with orderly rows of colour-coded fast fashion in every size, op shops require the skill of sifting through and searching for hidden treasures. I often marvel at what people throw away and my home is full of practical and whimsical things that cost me next to nothing.
I want to share a few lessons I’ve picked up on my secondhand travels.
A House of Mourning
As I move through the different sections of an op shop, it’s a great reminder of my mortality. The author of Ecclesiastes writes:
It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2)
Ecclesiastes is honest about what time does to everything and everyone and these truths are clear when browsing op shops. All the pretty glass bowls and vintage fabric and designer silk shirts and children’s classics and snorkelling gear and rollerblades once had owners.
One day, the op shop shelves tell me, my children will be sifting through my things and there’ll be a skip bin and some charity drop-offs involved. It’s a great reminder how:
All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures for ever. (Isaiah 40:6–8)
Op Shopping Helps Me Reject Materialism
If materialism is defined as my happiness and satisfaction being tied to things, op shopping helps me to combat this, by giving an object lesson in how things we buy don’t satisfy or last. The coffee table I scored for $20 now has a few more stains (I’m not the coaster type); the designer boots didn’t turn out to be particularly comfortable. Op shops are overflowing with items that testify to the fickleness of our society’s consumerist appetites and impulses. Someone once wanted it—or thought they wanted it—but grew out of it or disliked it or never found a use for it. Things I buy often end up back there for these same reasons.
It brings to mind Proverbs 11:28: “The person who trusts in their riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.” If I depend on things to satisfy, I will always be let down.
Op Shopping Shows Me My Materialism
As much as I can feel virtuous about being thrifty (and in the last ten years, sustainable), eschewing new things hasn’t removed all materialistic impulses. My overflowing wardrobe—even if it cost almost nothing—is testament to this.
My mum went through a cross stitch phase in the 1990s (she wasn’t alone; op shops are a mausoleum of unfinished projects and discarded hobbies) and one hung on our kitchen wall from the gospel of Matthew: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:21) I think about this verse and I have to ask myself some hard questions: does my heart race the same way when I’m heading into church on a Sunday to worship God and meditate on his word as it does when I pull into a church op shop? Am I as enthusiastic when I talk to school mums at the gate about my faith as I am about telling them the bargain I just found at the op shop? Could the time or money I spend op shopping, sometimes frugally but just as often frivolously, be better spent serving God or my brothers and sisters in Christ?
If, like me, you find it hard to drive past an op shop without wondering what you could be missing inside, it’s entirely possible that greed and materialism are bound up in your bargain hunting.
The Greatest Treasure
There is much to love about op shopping. I can rescue a handmade crochet blanket, I can stock up my kids’ bookshelves and I can create a warm and inviting home on a budget. Some days it’s good and right for me to pop into the op shop. Some days it’s also right for me to keep on driving past Good Sammies.
I love op shopping but the buzz I get finding treasures is mitigated by the knowledge that they’re all going to fade away. I already possess the greatest treasure it’s possible to have—a relationship with Christ Jesus my Lord and Saviour. Unlike anything I can find at an op shop, this treasure can never get moth-eaten or rusty or stolen.
