Thy Broken Lamp

How was your Monday? Was it the Monday-est of Mondays? Was it rather mundane? Perhaps you had a marvelous Monday? I set out on my Monday morning with what I would call marvelous expectations. Like Bible open on the counter ready to soak in God's word as sun streamed through the window, my little girl played and giggled type of expectations.

I know, I know, but dream BIG right? I did get my Bible time in but the day felt like one big test in patience. One thing to another went sidewise almost taunting me like "See what happened how are you going to react to THIS?" I'll be honest I wanted to lose it a couple of times, but several deep breaths later you realize it wasn't worth it.

When we slow down take stock of what matters, choose obedience to the Lord, our eyes become open to the sweetest of moments. Like seeing Jesus in the midst of breaking a lamp. I was vacuuming and somehow ( I still don't quite know how) I knocked this lamp over. It broke, instantly I felt all of the emotions. I love these lamps they are a matched set, they sit on the end tables in our living room, offer cozy light and are exactly my vibe. I was SO excited when I found them at Hobby Lobby last year. Now here it was lying in pieces on the floor. "But it was perfect" I whispered sadly. Then begin cleaning up the mess, thankfully the vacuum was already out.

As I pondered if I could find another lamp like this one if I went to Hobby Lobby I remembered something. Last week, I went antique shopping and found a cute chicken lamp that works perfectly by my coffee area in my kitchen. It replaced the old lamp I have had since college which now sat in the garage awaiting its next job. As I inspected my broken cow lamp I realized the lamp shade and the bulb were fine. So I went, grabbed my lamp from college, took off the base and attached it to the cow lampshade. Do my two lamps match completely? No, but that is okay there were deeper lessons for me to learn from.

First, the Lord cares about our "silly" wants and will guide us to the right spot even when it comes to purchasing a lamp IF we are listening. When I was considering if I should purchase the chicken lamp or not when I was shopping, my first thought was "I don't necessarily neeeddd another lamp" but I also had this gut feeling like this lamp was for my house. Even when sharing my lamp with friends I said things like " I don't know what I am going to do with my old lamp, but for now it is in the garage." Not even a week later I was grabbing that lamp back out to fix the broken cow lamp and it wouldn't have been available to me or top of mind if it hadn't been for purchasing the chicken lamp.

Am I saying God told me to spend money? No, but I am saying that God does use things for our good and for the benefit of teaching us to seek and rely on Him more. Remember I had said I was choosing to start a new routine of scripture and prayer first? That was always going to be met with some level of resistance. How was I going to respond? I was I going to choose obedience or was I going to let the frustration and anger win? Was this one moment or series of moments going to set the tone for my entire day? How was this going to shape my attitude and atmosphere of our home when my husband walked through the door after a day of facing whatever the world chose to throw at him?

These moments matter friends, these moments are also ministry moments because your kids are watching how you respond and the words you speak. We all know that kids mimic. We all know that they watch and observe more than we think they do. So when your sweet littles eyes are on you how are they learning to respond to the broken lamps of our lives?

The last lesson is this God is the mender of broken things and in Him is perfect contentment if we seek it. My first instict was to replace the broken lamp with a new one. That wasn't necessarily a wrong response, but was it the best stewardship of my resources? Is my contentment in a perfectly manicured, magazine worthy home or a home of love, hospitality and time spent together? Sometimes I wrestle with this one especially in seasons where we have the means to replace. We can have the means, but is that where God intended those resources to go? Stewardship and God require us to look at our hearts. There God can mend and heal the broken selfish parts of ourselves, just like He showed me how to fix my broken lamp.

God desires to be intrictely apart of the details of our day friends, will you let Him in?