The Chair

Everyone has them. All different shapes and sizes…some comfortable…some not so much. I am sitting in what we call the “Granddaddy Chair”. It is a “Slumber Streit Morris Chair”, given to Jeff’s granddaddy by one of his son’s who received it as a gift from a Colonel after WWII. This was the only chair that his granddad sat in. He read his Bible in it, he prayed in it, he napped in it and he watched TV from it. It was a well used and most loved chair. It now resides in our little library. When we reupholstered it several years ago, we found that it had been covered twice. Orange vinyl and then brown vinyl.

The chair has been faithful to hold it’s occupant with sturdiness and comfort. Right now it’s holding me. I sit in it to do my writing. I kneel at it when I am praying. I am certain this chair is familiar with the sound of crying before the Lord. If this chair could share the stories it has lived through….my what it could tell!

My mother has a “praying chair”. Actually, the one that is pictured in the “Blessings of Family” post from about a week or two back has been passed on to my sister, Aimee and Mother has a new praying chair in a quite corner of her bedroom. Aimee uses the chair the same way my mother did. Reading and praying. That chair has not been recovered since my mother gave it to her, so it has the mingled tears of both mother and daughter.

I am sure that as prayers are prayed kneeling at these chairs, perhaps yours too, decisions are made, and lives changed. As I pause to imagine the type of chair that the Lord Himself sits in, I picture a very large elaborately carved throne as only a King should have. More grand than any throne ever created by human hands. I imagine as we kneel at our little “praying chair”, the Father leans forward in His seat to hear our plea, or bask in our praise. I can imagine that at times He may even grip the arms of His seat with excitement as we “push further in” to His Presence in our prayer time. He longs for us to spend time with Him. Too often I catch myself becoming so busy and preoccupied with life that as I pass this chair on the way to the laundry room, I can “feel” it beckon me. As if to say, “you need to stop and spend some time in prayer”. Too often I press on with my work. Walking back and forth in front of this chair, all the while it remains still and untouched.

Is dust gathering on your “prayer chair”? Perhaps there is even some laundry draped over it. Uncover the chair. Wipe off the dust. Kneel down and settle in. An answer is waiting for you. Peace is just a prayer away. As I kneel down, I think I hear the chair sigh. As if to say, “finally”. Now His peace will come.