The Watch...
When I was a about 3-4 years of age, my father was in the Air Force and stationed on the island of Crete in Greece. To my mother’s delight, all of us were able to go “over-seas” with my dad and live near the base. In fact, we lived in a part mobile home/part house set up in a mobile home park walking distance to the Mediterranean. Previous owners had built onto a mobile home adding much needed living room space, a kitchen and I’m sure some other rooms which I don’t recall at the moment.
I slept in the wall! As a child, you don’t really care where you sleep, as long as mom is close and someone leaves a light on to keep at bay those hairy monsters lurking in the shadows. Actually, my bed was built into the wall of the mobile home. It was quite cozy. I’m sure I would hate it now…needing lots of space and places to put my “things.” But to a small child, it was a secret alcove to which I could retire and dream of sunny days and kittens (bunnies had yet to head my list as favorite pet).
Most of my memories on the Island of Crete are quite fantastic and filled with seashore visits, maids’ villages, braying donkeys, lots of family picnics and a silver metallic Christmas tree that changed colors due to a lit color wheel (hey, it was the late 60’s) shining on the tree.
I was a happy, carefree child full of curiosity and many playmates. I often trotted down the street to play with other children or bug the nice neighbor lady who always had some cookies or cake freshly baked and iced. I was an impish, tow-headed girl with tom-boy tendencies.
On one such occasion, I was several “houses” down the street playing with a little girl a few years older than me. She had a beautiful, brand new watch that I desperately wanted to hold and wear. Her bargain was I could wear it if I agreed to be locked up in the storage shed in her back yard. Perhaps she thought I would dance away and take her beloved watch with me? Perhaps she was a mean-spirited child trying to scare me? Or, perhaps it was the silly logic of small children who think this method best for securing the ownership of a possession and trundle off to become preoccupied with another playmate or plaything, forgetting the possession and the child wearing it in the shed.
I was locked in the storage shed and promptly forgotten. As I was wearing the watch, I could tell you exactly how long I was locked in the storage shed: 40 minutes. To you and me now, that is not even a sufficient lunch break. However, to a 4-year old, it was a millennium. And, what accentuated the imprisonment was the barely heard call of my mother heralding me home.
My mother was going to walk to the base for some grocery items and I was appointed to accompany her. I was left to play where I willed until I heard her summons, meaning my playtime was up and my new adventure escorting her to the store was at hand. I was strictly instructed to come home when I heard her call.
Now, lest you think my mother negligent in discovering my predicament, let me assure you, this was not a first time offense of not heeding her call. Often, I’d be so busy playing I wouldn’t hear her call or would hear it and choose to ignore her. Only once did I ignore my father’s call.
My mother chose not to discover my whereabouts as she thought I was pulling another of my childish acts of poor hearing or outright disobedience.
As her calls faded away, huge crocodile tears began to stain my pudgy cheeks.
When her calls stopped, cries of abandonment and anguished despair escalated from mild whimpers to shrill panicked shrieks and screams.
I had been left behind!
I was forgotten.
I was unsearched for.
I was willfully maligned and abandoned.
I was alone. In the dark. With a stupid, big deal, brand new watch to keep me company.
The one thing I wanted, brought me no comfort nor satisfaction.
The one thing I wanted, brought me silence, solitude and a dark, damp, storage shed.
The one thing I wanted did not bring me joy and left me alone, scared.
I wonder how many of you are sitting in a dark, damp, storage shed possessively holding that “one thing” you believe will bring you satisfaction?
Needless to say, I’m not in the shed. Eventually, a utility man and the mom of the despicable girl heard my pleas for release and freed me from my watch prison. I flung the watch aside and ran, with all my newly acquired energy, home.
I eagerly discarded the thing which, only a short hour before, I was willing to risk imprisonment to have and hold. “Ah,” you must be musing, “such a silly child.”
As children of the Creator of the Universe, we act repeatedly in similar silly fashion. Though our Father knows exactly where we are at all times, He doesn’t enforce His desire for a right relationship with us upon us. He gently, persistently calls to us. He invites us to drop that worldly distraction and abide in Him. He patiently waits…woos…nudges…calls…and He never gives up.
I’m so thankful He never gives up on me! Aren’t you?
So, the watch wasn’t bad. It was my desire for the watch which was the problem.
What or whom do you desire today?
I slept in the wall! As a child, you don’t really care where you sleep, as long as mom is close and someone leaves a light on to keep at bay those hairy monsters lurking in the shadows. Actually, my bed was built into the wall of the mobile home. It was quite cozy. I’m sure I would hate it now…needing lots of space and places to put my “things.” But to a small child, it was a secret alcove to which I could retire and dream of sunny days and kittens (bunnies had yet to head my list as favorite pet).
Most of my memories on the Island of Crete are quite fantastic and filled with seashore visits, maids’ villages, braying donkeys, lots of family picnics and a silver metallic Christmas tree that changed colors due to a lit color wheel (hey, it was the late 60’s) shining on the tree.
I was a happy, carefree child full of curiosity and many playmates. I often trotted down the street to play with other children or bug the nice neighbor lady who always had some cookies or cake freshly baked and iced. I was an impish, tow-headed girl with tom-boy tendencies.
On one such occasion, I was several “houses” down the street playing with a little girl a few years older than me. She had a beautiful, brand new watch that I desperately wanted to hold and wear. Her bargain was I could wear it if I agreed to be locked up in the storage shed in her back yard. Perhaps she thought I would dance away and take her beloved watch with me? Perhaps she was a mean-spirited child trying to scare me? Or, perhaps it was the silly logic of small children who think this method best for securing the ownership of a possession and trundle off to become preoccupied with another playmate or plaything, forgetting the possession and the child wearing it in the shed.
I was locked in the storage shed and promptly forgotten. As I was wearing the watch, I could tell you exactly how long I was locked in the storage shed: 40 minutes. To you and me now, that is not even a sufficient lunch break. However, to a 4-year old, it was a millennium. And, what accentuated the imprisonment was the barely heard call of my mother heralding me home.
My mother was going to walk to the base for some grocery items and I was appointed to accompany her. I was left to play where I willed until I heard her summons, meaning my playtime was up and my new adventure escorting her to the store was at hand. I was strictly instructed to come home when I heard her call.
Now, lest you think my mother negligent in discovering my predicament, let me assure you, this was not a first time offense of not heeding her call. Often, I’d be so busy playing I wouldn’t hear her call or would hear it and choose to ignore her. Only once did I ignore my father’s call.
My mother chose not to discover my whereabouts as she thought I was pulling another of my childish acts of poor hearing or outright disobedience.
As her calls faded away, huge crocodile tears began to stain my pudgy cheeks.
When her calls stopped, cries of abandonment and anguished despair escalated from mild whimpers to shrill panicked shrieks and screams.
I had been left behind!
I was forgotten.
I was unsearched for.
I was willfully maligned and abandoned.
I was alone. In the dark. With a stupid, big deal, brand new watch to keep me company.
The one thing I wanted, brought me no comfort nor satisfaction.
The one thing I wanted, brought me silence, solitude and a dark, damp, storage shed.
The one thing I wanted did not bring me joy and left me alone, scared.
I wonder how many of you are sitting in a dark, damp, storage shed possessively holding that “one thing” you believe will bring you satisfaction?
Needless to say, I’m not in the shed. Eventually, a utility man and the mom of the despicable girl heard my pleas for release and freed me from my watch prison. I flung the watch aside and ran, with all my newly acquired energy, home.
I eagerly discarded the thing which, only a short hour before, I was willing to risk imprisonment to have and hold. “Ah,” you must be musing, “such a silly child.”
As children of the Creator of the Universe, we act repeatedly in similar silly fashion. Though our Father knows exactly where we are at all times, He doesn’t enforce His desire for a right relationship with us upon us. He gently, persistently calls to us. He invites us to drop that worldly distraction and abide in Him. He patiently waits…woos…nudges…calls…and He never gives up.
I’m so thankful He never gives up on me! Aren’t you?
So, the watch wasn’t bad. It was my desire for the watch which was the problem.
What or whom do you desire today?
Labels: watches