The Blue Chairs

The Christmas before Sheldon left his mother gave me two beautiful, blue, Queen Ann chairs. She had redecorated her living room and no longer wanted them, but for me they were the nicest, prettiest pieces of furniture I had ever owned, and they made me happy.

When Sheldon's secretary kicked him out of her basement he rented an unfurnished apartment, and needed furniture.  He called me one day to ask if he could have the blue chairs.  I was furious! How could he even think about taking my chairs? They were my Christmas present, the first really nice things I had ever owned. Everything else in our house was hand-me-down, cast off, unwanted junk that we had accumulated over the years. I had worked hard to make our house lovely, I'd even taught myself how to recover old couches and chairs, and they looked all right, but these chairs were a step above everything else. Besides, I loved them!

All of these thoughts raced through my mind when Sheldon called, and a couple more reasons why I shouldn't give him my chairs, but then I thought, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." "Are these chairs my treasure?” I wondered. 

I really did want to be good. I wanted to build up treasures in Heaven, not on earth, and I wanted to put the Lord first in my life, so I shut my eyes, clamped my hands tightly, and said, “Yes.”

Then the most amazing thing happened. It was if a heavy load that had been pressing down on my chest just floated away. It was awesome! I hadn’t even known there was a pressure on my heart, but when it was gone I felt free, light as a feather, almost as if I were a bird, flying away up into the sky. I’ll never forget that feeling and how happy it made me to let go of something I thought I needed and wanted, and to discover how liberating it was. 

It felt so good that I went into my bedroom closet and got down the set of glass canisters I had been given as a wedding present.  I'd dried my wedding bouquet and arranged the preserved flowers in those canisters.  For years I'd displayed them in our front room, but when we moved into our new house they didn't quite match the decor, so they were still sitting on a shelf in my closet. 

"Sheldon could use these canisters in his new house", I decided.  I've got to admit that tears streamed down my face as I  pried open the air-tight lids and  dumped the dried rose leaves into my bedroom garbage, and I knew I was being a self righteous martyr, but that didn't stop me.  All right, I really wasn't ready to become a saint yet.  But Sheldon didn't know that, and he was happy to have more stuff for his new apartment.