CHAIRS

About 28 years ago, my husband and I were proud owners of a new small home. We had a nice dining room table, but no chairs. My in-laws gave us their wonderful Hitchcock chairs. They were loved and used.

Time passed, my father-in-law passed away, and my mother-in-law sold her home and many of her things to move closer to us. She gathered her most prized possessions around her. The only things missing, she said, were two Hitchcock chairs. Since I had six, I wouldn’t mind giving her two, she said. I didn’t think she was really serious. I thought it was a passing thought that was voiced out loud. Surely after all these years, she didn’t want me to return the gift.

I thought it was an unreasonable request. You don’t have to give back a gift. No one else in the family was asked to return anything, only me. I was “right.” I didn’t have to return them; they were mine. My husband was trying hard to figure out how to make his mother happy and his wife happy. Neither of us was budging on our position.

I always thought that I wasn’t tied to possessions, and a thought was flying through my mind – “These are just chairs.” But they were mine, and I didn’t have to return them if I didn’t want to, and I didn’t want to! I struggled with these thoughts for awhile, even losing sleep. I realized that I could choose to give them to my mother-in-law, not because she demanded them, but because I chose to. I could do this because I loved my husband and didn’t want him to be in the middle anymore. Most importantly, I could do this because if I believed treasures were to built up in heaven and not earth, my actions had to match my words.

This was not an easy decision. However, I felt God was nudging me in this direction. After I made the decision, I remember saying to God: “OK, I’ll give the chairs back, but I’m not happy about it. So, please make me happy about it!” Why, when I was doing what God wanted me to do, was I not at peace immediately?

I did achieve peace, however, after deciding to talk with my mother- in-law about this. She was so happy to receive the chairs back. After all, she told me, her husband had told her he would replace their Hitchcock chairs after they gave us their old ones. He replaced the chairs with something she didn’t like nearly as well as the ones they first had.

My mother-in-law passed away two months later. I am thankful that we had cleared the air, and I was able to sit by her bedside in the last days of her life. If I had stood in the “right” much longer, I would have missed being in relationship with my mother-in-law at the end of her life. I’m glad she had the chairs she so wanted to comfort her in her final days.

And yes, I got the chairs back, along with most of her other treasures. But the gift received from all this was the knowledge that chairs are just things, and people are so much more important. This is where God wants my heart and treasures to be, both in words and actions.

— Elaine Woodward

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist