It was a full-fledged ‘tyranny of the urgent’ kind of morning at the ripe hour of 7am as husband and son rush out the door for work and school. Once again, the car keys have gone missing. Car key, actually, since the set of keys has been mysteriously MIA for the past six weeks. This morning the spare key could not be found. These things just seem to happen in our home…..not regularly, but enough to make you question just how the synapses of our brains keep misfiring into forgetfulness. Thankfully, this was not my doing – this time. A few months back my keys pulled a random vanishing act on me. It was a complete mystery….until I found them in the pocket of a pair of capris weeks later. A tad embarrassing!
The three of us kicked into high gear searching all the obvious places that the key could have been placed. We retraced Frank’s steps of activities after arriving home from church yesterday. We checked pants pockets and table tops. Nothing! So, the obvious decision was for them to leave with my van for the day. They rushed out the door, my husband forgetting both coffee and lunch. Yah, it was that kind of morning!
I wasted no time to jump into action. I determined that the most likely place for the lost key was in our bedroom or the living room. So, I kicked into spring cleaning mode. It was a rather disgusting process. More dust bunnies than I care to admit.
But my worst fear was what if the key had slipped out of my husband’s pocket and into the cushions of the couch or loveseat or oversized chair. I impulsively pulled off all the pillows and cushions, and was rather horrified at what I found: crumbs and gravel and writing utensils and well-used Kleenex and wrappers of various kinds. I knew this was just the surface level of things, for the real test was to slip my hand into the crevices of the furniture and pull out whatever had found lodging there. I took a deep breath, grimaced, and squeezed my fingers between the boards and springs, grasping items unidentifiable by touch. Shudder! I gingerly pulled out a wealth of treasures from years gone by. Literally! Play Mobil and Lego and K’nex pieces, nerf bullets, batteries, a bobby pin (just how many years has it been since our daughter lived in this house?!), some random keys (not the one I was searching for), and some various coinage (93 cents American, 35 cents Canadian, and 10 cents Euro ….and just where did the cent symbol go on Querty!!!). In just my overstuffed chair alone, I found eight writing utensils, one of them being a Sharpie marker, thankfully, with its lid intact! Horrors! What can I say? There have been years of hours of homeschooling that happened on these items of furniture.
With pinched fingers I carefully worked to dislodge all these forgotten treasures from the inner workings of my furniture. In doing so, I came across a piece of paper with the words “Spiritual riches, Ephesians 1:18” written in my husband’s handwriting. How ironic! I couldn’t help but laugh. As I worked through this task, my thoughts were definitely not on riches of any kind, least of all spiritual. This job was gross to say the least! But I was curious to look up the verse.
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.”
Yes, in the reality of the yuck and the gross and disgusting of our menial, everyday lives, it is good to be reminded of the beauty and the goodness and the hope that is ours in the Spirit, for no other reason than we are sons and daughters of the Most High God. All that He is, is offered to us. The richness of His glorious inheritance is gifted to us, his children.
Even as I clean out the remnants of many a homeschool day, family night, wrestling match, play time, or heart discussion from my furniture, I am gloriously reminded that the view is so much more grand. In the temporary, I clean up the gross, vacuum the crevices, and pocket my meager earnings. In the eternal, I see that even cleaning up the hidden messes and searching for a lost key in an effort to bless my husband, is an act of service. It is all about recognizing that my identity rests in Jesus. Because of His work of redemption in my calloused soul, with lots of dirt hidden in deep crevices, I can look ahead with hope and surety. Yes, He enlightens my heart by pointing me forward to the glorious inheritance that He promises. In this I hope and live.