When?

No doubt about it:  everyone has a favorite chair.  Certainly I do, and I'm sure you do, too. 

Unfortunately (there's that word again!), my favorite chair is currently surrounded by the mess that has overwhelmed my living room, and I have felt beggared to do anything about it.  I keep thinking that I need to attack the problem but I never seem to get started.  So, there is sits, alone and waiting, surrounded by boxes and packing materials:  my chair.

It's a nice old chair but nothing fancy.  Most antique fanciers would reject it out-out-of-hand for that 1940's re-upholstery job that in no way goes with the 1890's frame.  But I love it, turquoise federal eagles and all.

The chair and I have been together for nearly ten years now.  It's where I go when I need to think, when I need to pray, when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep.  It always seems like a solid place in a scary world. 

So there I sat this morning in my chair, surrounded by detrious and kinda saying my prayers and considering what to do about the debris pile that glowers over my living room. 

For no reason whatsoever, as I scanned the general disorder, my eyes happened to light on a little basket that someone gave me.  It's really cute.  But it's brown.  And I don't like brown.  To me, brown is the color of depression; it doesn't even have the dignity of black.  Brown is just.....well, the color of poo.  Poor basket.  I thought that it would be such a happy little thing if only it were yellow.  But I also thought that this wasn't the time to consider messing with a basket because I had bigger and more important stuff to deal with than painting a brown basket yellow.  Besides, I'd have to search for the paint and that would be a waste of time.

So I went back to saying my prayers:  "Okay, God, please help me to see what to do next....."  That is when I saw something directly in front of me, not three feet away.  I couldn't have missed it if I tried.  And I began to laugh.

You know, I mean no disrespect to God whatsoever when I say that I believe He's got a sense of humor.  Seriously.  I figured that out when I was a kid and read the story of Jonah in the Bible.  Yeah, it wasn't the fish that was amusing; it was when the leaf wilted on Jonah's head--I laughed at that then and I still laugh now.  And have you looked at giraffes lately?  That's funny right there.  What about tigers?  Their skin is as striped as their fur!  It says in the Bible that God made us for his pleasure.  Pleasure.  That's why I think He wants us to laugh.  And I know He wants to get our attention.

How do I know?  A can of yellow paint.

When?  NOW!  Thanks, God. 

Got it.  Paint the basket first.  Then tackle the boxes in the living room.  And everything will work out fine.

First coat of paint is already on the basket.  Now I'm gonna go add a second.  Yellow makes me happy.

God is good.
He cares about the small stuff.
And He wants us to smile.