The Green Chair

My brothers and my sister were quite a bit older when I was born ... yep, I was an "oops" baby in the truest sense of the word. Because of the significant age difference, my oldest nieces and nephews are only a few years younger than me. In fact, my oldest niece is not quite two years younger than I am ... granted, she looks like she's 20 years younger and could be a model, but she really is less than two years younger than me. But while she looks younger than me, she already has two ... count 'em, two ... grandchildren, so technically she's a granny and I'm not just yet. My niece and I spent a ton of time together when we were young because my sister kept me a lot while Mom worked. My niece and I were really more like sisters than aunt and niece, as was often evidenced in our bickering and picking at each other.

Almost every time my niece and I get together now, which isn't very often since she lives in Tennessee and I live in Kansas, somehow one of us manages to bring our battles over the green chair into the conversation. You see, my sister had this green chair that sat in the corner of her family room, and for some reason that neither my niece nor I can remember, she and I fought like crazy over who got to sit in the green chair. Now we laugh about it, but back then, whoever shouted, "I call the green chair!" and made it to the chair first was a big deal, a really, really big deal.

I was thinking this evening as I was driving home about all the things in life that are not my call ... that no matter how much I may want to be the decider on certain events or situations, I can't make the call. It's not my call if someone is going to heaven or hell. It's not my call if someone is rich or poor. It's not my call if someone is healthy or sick. It's not my call if someone is nice or mean. It's not my call if someone is honest or lies. It's not my call to determine if someone is right or wrong. It's not my call if someone lives or dies. I may have been able to call the green chair as mine for a night, but in life, so very many things are not my call.

Watching the news and reading stories online this past week has made me realize, perhaps more than I ever have before, that I shouldn't presume anything about another person ... that I shouldn't be judgmental ... that I shouldn't allow any form of prejudice to ever creep into my heart. The truth is that it's not my call ... the truth is that it's only His.

"If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, 'Here’s a good seat for you,' but say to the poor man, 'You stand there' or 'Sit on the floor by my feet,' have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" James 2:3-5