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- Feb 9, 2004
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My husband once told me that there are two kinds of people in this world: "coverers" and "users." My grandmother was a coverer. There were hand towels on my grandfather's TV chair, a blanket on the sofa - she even had special clear plastic seat covers made for her Chevy.
Don't get me wrong - Grandma's house was always fun. But I can't tell you how UN-fun it was to sit in her car in the summer. Actually, the sitting wasn't so bad. It was the getting up that was painful. I remember thinking after I got out of the car that I needed to reach back in and peel the rest of my legs off the plastic. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could do a skin graft with the parts of me I left on Grandma's plastic seat covers.
I spent every summer with my grandma when I was growing up. Still, I don't think I ever saw her sofa. One of my chores at her house was to straighten the blanket that covered the sofa. When I was about twelve years old, I finally asked, "Grandma, how come the sofa has to stay covered all the time?" She said, "So it will stay nice." So I asked, "Well what good does it do to have a nice sofa that we've never seen?" She just chuckled.
Maybe watching Grandma encouraged me to become a user. I've never had china so good that we couldn't use it. The best towels are always out. Sadly, it doesn't take long at all for those good towels to turn into mere strings. They look like fringe hanging from the towel bars, but they're out. My furniture, too, is forever uncovered. We go through a sofa every other year or so, but we at least get to watch it disintegrate.
As a matter of fact, right before I had children I bought a light peach-colored sofa. Somewhere around the third baby or so, the sofa was probably about 75% apple juice. And that's only the good fluid it had absorbed. I shudder to think how many miscellaneous baby drippings were coagulating in there.
If you're a coverer, you're probably asking why a good sofa had to die so young. OK, you're right. It could've been saved if I had been more careful. Maybe there's some place in the middle where users and coverers can meet and find a healthy harmony - a balance somewhere this side of skin-snatching plastic covers and the other side of sofas that could start plagues.
When it comes to God's Word, though, we should all be users. James 1:22 says, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." No need to save the treasure of his Word for a rainy day when we can use it every day. And it's funny, because God's Word is also our cover - in the nicest, non-plastic way. It covers us and protects us from foolishness and sin.
Don't get me wrong - Grandma's house was always fun. But I can't tell you how UN-fun it was to sit in her car in the summer. Actually, the sitting wasn't so bad. It was the getting up that was painful. I remember thinking after I got out of the car that I needed to reach back in and peel the rest of my legs off the plastic. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could do a skin graft with the parts of me I left on Grandma's plastic seat covers.
I spent every summer with my grandma when I was growing up. Still, I don't think I ever saw her sofa. One of my chores at her house was to straighten the blanket that covered the sofa. When I was about twelve years old, I finally asked, "Grandma, how come the sofa has to stay covered all the time?" She said, "So it will stay nice." So I asked, "Well what good does it do to have a nice sofa that we've never seen?" She just chuckled.
Maybe watching Grandma encouraged me to become a user. I've never had china so good that we couldn't use it. The best towels are always out. Sadly, it doesn't take long at all for those good towels to turn into mere strings. They look like fringe hanging from the towel bars, but they're out. My furniture, too, is forever uncovered. We go through a sofa every other year or so, but we at least get to watch it disintegrate.
As a matter of fact, right before I had children I bought a light peach-colored sofa. Somewhere around the third baby or so, the sofa was probably about 75% apple juice. And that's only the good fluid it had absorbed. I shudder to think how many miscellaneous baby drippings were coagulating in there.
If you're a coverer, you're probably asking why a good sofa had to die so young. OK, you're right. It could've been saved if I had been more careful. Maybe there's some place in the middle where users and coverers can meet and find a healthy harmony - a balance somewhere this side of skin-snatching plastic covers and the other side of sofas that could start plagues.
When it comes to God's Word, though, we should all be users. James 1:22 says, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." No need to save the treasure of his Word for a rainy day when we can use it every day. And it's funny, because God's Word is also our cover - in the nicest, non-plastic way. It covers us and protects us from foolishness and sin.
