Chairs and Hangers

When I was a teenager, my mom and I had some major arguments about the cleanliness of my room, or more accurately, we engaged in an ongoing battle about the lack thereof ... cleanliness, that is. My room wasn't dirty, it was just cluttered, really, really cluttered, and it drove Mom crazy. I can remember her words as if she were speaking them today ... "I don't see how you can find anything in here." While we battled over many things during my teenage and college years, I don't think any of them could even begin to compare with one particular habit I had involving my messy room. Instead of hanging my clothes on hangers and placing them in the closet, I draped them over the back of my desk chair. I know you're wondering why that small thing would precipitate so many heated discussions between me and Mom, but here's the thing ... I didn't just put the clothes on the chair for a day or two, I put them there day after day after day after day. I piled my clothes on the chair until there were so many stacked on the back of it that if I happened to brush against it, the chair would topple over and all the clothes would end up on the floor. If Mom happened to walk in my room and the clothes were scattered on the floor, she would throw what is known in the South as a conniption fit and threaten to throw my clothes in the trash if I didn't hang them up in the closet where they belonged.

I've been thinking a lot about that chair in my room recently and a lot about my habit of covering its back with layer after layer of clothes. Now that I'm an adult, I can't help but wonder why I did that for so many years ... I can't help but wonder why I didn't just put the clothes on hangers and place them in the closet. And now that I'm an adult, I also can't help but regret the fact that I caused Mom so much anguish over such a stupid thing as hanging up my clothes. If I could do it over, I would have done as Mom asked ... I would have put the clothes where they belonged, and I would have let the chair be what it was created to be ... a chair ... I wouldn't have covered it up, I would have let it be a chair. It wasn't until years later that something huge struck me about my chair and my clothes ... it took far less time and effort to hang up my clothes when I took them off than it did to wade through the stack on the back of the chair until the layers were removed.

This morning as I was driving to work, I realized why my clothes-covered chair from the room of my youth has been on my mind so much lately. I've spent most of my life piling clothes on the chair of my heart, and I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to wade through the layers and hang them up ... to let the chair of my heart be what it was created to be ... a chair ... I've been uncovering the chair and letting it be a chair. And just like when I was young, the more clothes I take off of the chair of my heart and put away, the more visible the chair becomes, not only to me but to all those around me as well ... the chair of me is slowly but surely looking more and more like a chair and less and less like something it was never meant to be. But ... but ... but ... not only does it take a lot of time and effort to uncover the chair, it takes even more not to cover it up again.

Chairs and hangers ... there's a huge lesson there, friends, a huge, huge, huge lesson about being who God created me to be, about being transparent and real, about allowing Him to peel away all those layers I've spent years stacking up and waiting as He patiently and carefully hangs them up, about trusting that He has a plan and a purpose for me. He always sees the chair beneath the clothes ... He always sees the chair ... He always sees the chair ... He always sees me.