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Every Day is Precious: Finding Jesus in the closet
By ROB PAYNE
For Williamson A.M.
I've had to do it twice every year: the dreaded seasonal clothes exchange.
When the weather turns warm, I have to get the warm-weather clothes out of storage and put the cold-weather clothes in storage. When the weather gets cold, I do it all over again, but in reverse. I think this is why wealthy people have a summer and winter home so they don't have to move their clothes around.
The work isn't that hard, it's just that there always seems like there is something better to do. Before Marcy's symptoms started, she did most of the individual clothes shuffling moving them around once in the closet but I always carried the clothes to and from storage. As we have lived in different places, clothes storage has meant different locations: rented storage space, a spare room closet, the attic and/or the basement.
It sounds like we have a lot of clothes; I don't know if we do or not. I do know that with each of our houses, we have made sure there is more closet space in the new house than there was in the house before.
And Marcy has always been good about getting rid of unused clothes selling what she can in yard sales, consignment stores and consignment sales, then donating what she didn't sell. But somehow the clothes always expand to be about one closet more than the house we live in.
I thought I wouldn't have to do the clothes exchange this spring. Being bed-bound since March of 2003, Marcy has worn hospital gowns 95% of the time. But at 10 years old, our daughter Darcy is starting to come of age. A few weeks ago Marcy told me that Darcy's warm-weather clothes needed to be brought up from the basement.
Is the seasonal clothes exchange one of the laws of nature? Or is it something that needs to be taught some kind of Gucci theorem? Or is it fun? Like getting a free shopping spree twice a year where you get to handle and choose any clothes you want without having to think about budget. Whatever the reason, I do think it is an ''X chromosome'' thing.
But this season I was spared after all.
Two of our Sunday school classmates, Donna and Donna, came to reorganize closets for us. They brought all of Darcy's clothes to Marcy for direction on if and where they should be kept. It took them a few hours to do what would have taken me a week or more. They were also very pleasant about it.
In Matthew, chapter 6, Jesus told us when we pray, we should go in a closet. I understood that to mean that we should pray in a place of seclusion, not a public place just for show. But now that verse means more to me. Because at our house, at least on that day, you could find Jesus in our closet.
If you know a family in need, consider helping them around their house. You could help them get more out of their closet.
Every Day Is Precious is a column to remind us to treat everyone we see today as if it could be the last time we see them. It is written by Rob Payne, whose wife, Marcy, was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) in August 2000. Visit www.EveryDayIsPrecious.com.
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