One Measly Talent - One Discount Desk
The last time we remodeled our house (read, "recovered from a house fire"), we made the decision to downsize our spacious bedroom to make room for a roomier utility area. This meant eliminating the part of our bedroom which served as a home office. Two desks, two desk top computers, including the giant, now obsolete, car-sized monitors, had to be eliminated from our floor plan.
I was ok with this because the elimination of the giant office space came with the promise of a black Friday discounted lap top computer, that i could use on the arm of the couch, while watching t.v., visiting with friends, and listening to music, because the more media exposure one gets, all at one time, the best in the long run. Or that's what i heard.
And i did get my lap top and my down-sized bedroom. A couple of years later, i even got a new bed. And i have successfully used my lap top on the couch, while watching tv, talking to my husband, and texting with friends, more than once. Ok, more than a handful of times. Ok, kind of often.
But there is just something about sitting down at a desk, in a normal sized chair, to make a list, or type a message, or write on a calendar, or whatever, that makes a record keeper type like myself, feel at ease. And the need, for that "at ease" space has been gnawing at me for quite a few months. I've browsed craigslist and facebook and garage sales, looking for something i could fit in my living room, and i've talked myself out of a purchase over and over. But the need kept creeping up, and my calendars kept being unwrittenupon. And then i fell upon it. It seemed like it couldn't be true. My tiny budget met with someone so desperate to empty an apartment that they let me take home their desk before i could pay them my 20 bucks! Wow!
The desk was much larger than it appeared in the picture on facebook, and much better quality too. And i worked all weekend, re-rearranging furniture and going through piles of unorganized pieces of paper, trying to finally marry my "at ease space" with the living room, without making the whole business look like i just decided to stick a desk next to the couch for grins.
And i think i finally did it. And i'm so happy about it that this will be my second blog post in one week (and if you've been not reading my blog for a while, you know that the twice a week thing has been missing for a lot of months), so i have to show you. Here it is!
I was ok with this because the elimination of the giant office space came with the promise of a black Friday discounted lap top computer, that i could use on the arm of the couch, while watching t.v., visiting with friends, and listening to music, because the more media exposure one gets, all at one time, the best in the long run. Or that's what i heard.
And i did get my lap top and my down-sized bedroom. A couple of years later, i even got a new bed. And i have successfully used my lap top on the couch, while watching tv, talking to my husband, and texting with friends, more than once. Ok, more than a handful of times. Ok, kind of often.
But there is just something about sitting down at a desk, in a normal sized chair, to make a list, or type a message, or write on a calendar, or whatever, that makes a record keeper type like myself, feel at ease. And the need, for that "at ease" space has been gnawing at me for quite a few months. I've browsed craigslist and facebook and garage sales, looking for something i could fit in my living room, and i've talked myself out of a purchase over and over. But the need kept creeping up, and my calendars kept being unwrittenupon. And then i fell upon it. It seemed like it couldn't be true. My tiny budget met with someone so desperate to empty an apartment that they let me take home their desk before i could pay them my 20 bucks! Wow!
The desk was much larger than it appeared in the picture on facebook, and much better quality too. And i worked all weekend, re-rearranging furniture and going through piles of unorganized pieces of paper, trying to finally marry my "at ease space" with the living room, without making the whole business look like i just decided to stick a desk next to the couch for grins.
And i think i finally did it. And i'm so happy about it that this will be my second blog post in one week (and if you've been not reading my blog for a while, you know that the twice a week thing has been missing for a lot of months), so i have to show you. Here it is!
O.k. it's not that much. And i really need to put some effort into finding a real curtain for that window. But i have an at ease place now. See? And i can use a real mouse too, because of flat surface area. I feel so ... civilized.
O.k. i don't really have any deep spiritual lessons for us to learn from the pictures of my new secondhand desk, except may be this: we are all given gifts by God, abilities, places where we shine, places where we feel most "at ease," where we are of greatest benefit to others. And while there are things we will always be better at than other things, it isn't very fair of us to expect those gifts and abilities to just force their way out of the that box on the arm of the couch, while we keep stuffing them back in. Our gifts will likely have more success in our lives, if we give them an at ease place where they can grow and be matured and learn the best ways to benefit others. If they spend our lives trying to gnaw their way out of our tiny boxes, well, at the very least, they won't be living up to the potential for which God placed them in us. Remember the servant who buried his one talent in the ground because he was afraid to risk using it?
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10-11)
Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you... (2 Timothy 1:6)
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