It started with wanting a red couch and love seat. We have lived in the same home for 17 yrs at this time. I am blessed with a nice, but very small home. So I tend to get bored with my surroundings, furniture, home accessories, etc. So I’m the type of person who moves my furniture around all the time. Jessie, my husband, will never know when he comes home, if it will look the same.
I do have nice things in my home, but after all these years, they are worn out. I personally think we should all have new home showers every ten yrs. I mean really, everything is ragged and looking rough. Carpets, Mini Blinds, Throw Pillows, Throw Rugs, Flower Arrangements, Cabinets, Towels, Dishes. I really could go on and on.
Now I am truly blessed and I know from whom my Blessings come. I just got in one of those moods where I wanted something different. Don’t we all? That’s why we color our hair, or get our nails done, or go buy a new outfit or shoes, or like me, a new purse. So I wanted a red couch and love seat. When I said red, I got some funny looks. I didn’t want burgundy, or candy apple red, I wanted bright, bright red. Red is my favorite color and it makes me feel good.
I have felt the red mood coming on for a while. It started with wanting a red purse. I got one, two, actually, three. That wasn’t working. So then I started looking at scarves, because it was winter. I don’t know how many red scarves I have now. Every shade I’m sure. Finally my Mom hit the right color with the bright red scarf she made me. So then, I move on to wanting a red jacket. Speaking of my Mom, she has her own definition of red. When my Dad makes her mad, she sees red. I think she gets so mad that she goes into a blaze of red fury and can’t see anything for a few seconds. That’s funny. Cause now I know the feeling. That is not the way I like looking at my red. Actually, everyone knows that my Mom is a wonderful Christian lady and has lots of wisdom and I have to say, I believe it is ok for us ladies to get righteously indignant with our men and some of the things they do, as long as we do not sin with it. Which, in my case, most of the times I have to ask forgiveness. Now in defense of the men, it does go both ways. Anyway, back on track. A jacket. I got the red jacket. Kolby got it for me on Valentines Day. So bright, soft and so red, I love it.
The more red I get! The more red I want! So that is when the idea for the couch and love seat came. If red makes me feel good. Why not a living room suite? I have gold curtains and gold picture frames, a white kitchen table and china cabinet. I can make it work. So we went shopping. No bright red that I liked. I wanted the buy now and pay in two yrs and could not find that either. I was determined that I would not make a bill for it because we had just paid off Jessie’s truck and my work was low. So I went home disappointed.
We really needed another chair, our kids have would come home and one would go to the bedroom because there was no where to sit. I was determined I would at least find a used chair and it didn’t even have to be red at this point. Jessie kept telling me he would get me a chair. I am one of those people who want it now. Every time we would see one at a thrift store, he would say “No. You don’t know where it has been. I will get you a new one.” Well…… I was walking around at a yard sale one day and there it sat. A red chair. Oh my. A petite red chair, with a button back and a skirt around the bottom. I got excited and asked the lady how much. $15, I couldn’t believe it. My mind went instantly to Jessie saying, “You don’t need to buy a used one, you don’t where it’s been.” So….. I start reasoning in my head. I looked at the lady and she was well dressed and seemed well kept. I looked around at her stuff. She had a couch and a love seat. Not red though, but nice.
All of her items seem to be nice. She started talking to me because she saw I was interested. She told me the story that it was her worry chair. That she would sit in it at night, while she worried where her children were and rub the sides of it. She said that when they came home and saw her sitting in the red chair, they knew they were in trouble. She told me she had bought it new for $300. That made me feel good, at least I knew it was a one owner. I told her I had to talk my honey into it and would hopefully be back. I called Jessie all excited and of course hearing my excitement and my reasoning, he didn’t want to, but said he would leave it up to me. He met me with the truck. When he got there, he looked at it. I said, “What do you think?” He said it looked ok. I could tell he was not thrilled with getting it, but he has made a habit of spoiling me over the years and that day was no different. He just said, “Do what you want!” I did. I took it. Happy! Happy! Happy! I told her that it was now a prayer chair, not a worry chair. It was red, made me feel good and I would use it to talk to the Lord in it. I just knew God was meeting my need and blessing me with a red chair at a good price.
We get home and get it inside and I start cleaning it. So…. as I was cleaning, I started to smell a stink. About that time my little Sable, a weenie dog runs up. I said, “Whew girl, are stinking again? She was all over that chair like my sister on a sales rack at Belks. I thought she was going to hike her leg and mark her territory. I have the best little dog in the world. So obedient and loving, but she smells sometimes. Who knew little Dachsunds need anal cleanings routinely. Well I do now! Anyway, I was like, shoo girl, you need a bath. Then she goes off to look for Jessie and the smell is still there.
I thought, no, no way! I went over to Sables bed and sniffed. It didn’t stink. I was not feeling so well by then. I went back to the chair and sniffed. Words cannot describe the horrendous smell coming from that chair. My heart sank. It was not Sable. I mean, that was good, it was not my dog, but my pretty red chair, please! I scrubbed and scrubbed. Then Jessie comes through and I thought, oh I will never live this down. I am getting the stink out of this chair one way or another. He looked at me and grinned. I said I am scrubbing it. You have to clean everything that comes from a yard sale. He just looked at me.
After cleaning it with upholstery cleaner and pet odor remover, we decided to put it outside and let it air out for a day or two. It smelled pretty good. I was very proud of myself. We brought it back in. Jessie sat in it a couple of times and said it was comfortable. Now, that the stink was gone. I could enjoy it. I had lost all my joy over it when I smelled that horrendous smell.
About two days later, I was on my exercise bike which sat next to the red chair. I’m riding away, listening to my gospel music and I get a whiff of the stink. Uggh! I turned my head and sniffed and went OH NO. It’s back. I started scrubbing before Jessie could find out. This time it was not working. Kolby, my son, comes home and says, “Mom, you need to put the chair back outside.” But he meant to leave it. Jessie came home and seen I was truly upset and being the loving husband he is, he tried to convince me we could somehow get the smell out. So we tried again. This time, Kassandra, my beautiful daughter, comes home and walks by it and says, “Mom, it stinks. If you will put it outside, I will go to the furniture store and look for you another chair.” I just sat there. I did not want to give up my red chair. But now I knew it was not looking good. Jessie said he had sat in it, but had to get up and move because of the stink, but he didn’t want to tell me.
That night, Kassandra went to get a throw I had thrown over the back to help accessorize, so it would match the rest of the house, even though there was nothing else red in my house. She picked up the throw and said, “Shoo, now the throw stinks too.” I knew then it my heart, it was going to have to go. The stink was spreading. I held on to that chair for 10 days before I could let it go. As I am writing this, the chair is sitting out on my porch, waiting for Saturday to come, to be hauled off to the dump. Now after all this, Jessie had to say I told you so, over and over as I knew he would.
THIS PART IS WHERE THE TITLE COMES FROM. Finally I told him that chair was not a waste of money and I had learned from it. I also learned spiritually from it too. That I was going to write down the spiritual comparison of that stinking red chair and how we have to be careful what we bring it to our house, spiritual house also and that I didn’t know when, but someday God would allow me to tell about it and someone would get blessed, it would be worth his $15. He just smiled at me and said I’m sure you will. So now, I will share with you the spiritual comparison.
• First of all, if you are a child of God, you should listen to still small voice. Don’t ignore it and do your own thing. In this case, the voice was Jessie, not God.
• I could have waited on something better, but I wanted what I wanted and was not willing to wait.
• Looks are deceiving. Just because something looks good, does not mean that it is. That is how Satan tries to get to us. He makes things look nice, beautiful, or pleasurable.
• We have to beware, because the enemy can use that to pull us in, and then in no time, we have been deceived and there is a horrendous stink lying under what we think is so pretty.
• If you get caught up in the beauty or the fun of something, it is very hard to let go. You think you can handle, you can make it better, or put it to the side and let it air out hoping it will be a keeper.
• Sin is like that in our life. It creeps in, with a form of fun, excitement, or just wanting something really bad and not making a wise decision. Like the throw on the back of the chair, it starts to spread.
• We have to have wisdom, to know the stink when it comes into our life. We have to recognize it for what it is and put it outside.
Our body is the temple of Christ, we have to be careful what we let in to our bodies, what we see, what we hear. The eyes and ears are windows for what goes into our spirit. I brought that red chair into my home and it smelled, without me even knowing it. It is easy to let ungodly things into our spiritual lives, not even realizing we are doing it. That’s when the good Lord starts speaking to us and convicting our hearts of what is going on. We have to keep a close relationship with God so that we can have wisdom when we need it. We need to wait on what God has for us, because He always has the best for us, if we don’t get in a hurry and decide to do things on our own. I have learned a lesson from this experience and I want others to learn what I already knew, I just to had to be reminded by a stinking red chair. I don’t want my temple to stink. I’m going to ask God to check me. If anything is not pleasing to him. Take it outside to the dump and forgive me.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! TRUST JESUS NOW
Read more articles by kim duckett or search for articles on the same topic or others.
