Friday night we drove past a store I've been wanting to shop at for years - The Container Store. I have refrained from entering the store for so long because: 1) I just want to spend an hour wandering around the store.... but I have kids. 2) I just want to buy everything in the store.... but I don't have that much money. 3) I was just sure I would find something I couldn't live without... and then have to.
Such a quandary.
But after dinner with my in-laws to celebrate a birthday, I was feeling a little giddy. So we stopped at The Container Store on our way home. I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing when we entered the store. Not even the kids could distract me from my mission to admire all the containers. I gave the boys the task of finding the largest container they could and then set them loose in the store - good luck, fellow patrons!
Eventually, I had seen it all and found one small thing to buy - seriously overpriced decorative adhesive point tabs. Aren't they beautiful?! (I know, they're not even containers, but my second weakness is office supplies).
As I was nearing the checkout line, Chuck pointed to the front window of the store and asked, "Have you seen the sunset?" Me: "Sunset? No. Why?" I looked up and saw what he was talking about. Oh.My.Word. I had to get out of the store. Viewing it through the glass wasn't good enough. Outside the store, the sunset was breathtaking. Pictures can't do it justice, they can't capture the purples and blues that were at the deep edges, nor the sense of white heat within the flaming, orange center. I stood there in the parking lot gawking at the beauty and taking pictures like I'd never seen a sunset before.
Later that night, it occurred to me that we often put God in a container (or a box). We have certain expectations or boundaries for where or when we think God will show up, or how we think we have to behave in order to experience the presence of God. Sometimes (maybe all the time) we keep a neat and tidy God in a fancy little box. Sometimes the box is big, sometimes it's small. Sometimes we show it off, other times we hide it away. The boxes we keep God in come in all different forms (just like I saw at The Container Store): transparent and in a variety of rainbow colors, opaque and decorated in various shapes and sizes, plain and practical, heavy and immovable for sitting on or storing stuff in, woven and allowing for glimpses of what is within.
But here's the rub: God cannot be contained. The boxes we keep God in cannot contain all that God is - the love, the grace, the mercy, the blessings, the justice, on and on. We think we know the limit of it and we think we have it contained in the box, but we can't possibly. In the same way that I needed to leave the container store to fully experience the sunset, we need to remove the containers we keep God in, so that we can fully experience the surprising depth and breadth of the heart of God.
But today also marks a day of celebration for our family. Chuck & I were married on September 11th, two years before the attacks. Today we celebrate 17 years of marriage, and for that I am so thankful. We were on vacation when the attacks occurred and we spent the entire day watching live coverage, wondering what our future would hold in that frightening new world. 15 years later, we celebrate two young men who are making their own way in this new world - our sons: Ryan (11) & Michael (14).
