The Candles Burned Again Today

I gave my mom the rest of my summer Mondays for her birthday.

For today’s Mom Monday, mom decided that we should stay home and do chores. Our main chore was to go through some boxes of candles and continue getting ready for Nana Camp. Currently, as part of an on-going clean-up and -out project, no upstairs room is ready for occupancy by anyone other than me.

Friends, I am a good organizer.
I can sort, file, and clean with the best of them.
But I am terrible at throwing things away if they could possibly be used again and/or redeemed in any way.
This is not a new realization.
I’ve written about it before.
But I was reminded of it today as I found myself lighting almost every candle that mom gave me to throw away.

“There’s nothing wrong with this,” I’d say.
So I’d light the candle and let it burn…
Until all of a sudden I felt sick because I had so many different candles burning that their smells overwhelmed my senses.
Then I had to lie down to recover.

As I was laying on the couch in recovery,
Deal Or No Deal was playing on TV.
I heard the woman on the show repetitively turn down tens of thousands of dollars in hopes of getting more.
On her last chance, she said,
“Please God…”

I thought to myself,
“I was just saying that:
‘Please God…’
Please God, forgive me for buying in excess and creating so much waste.
Forgive me for falling prey to consumerism when I could be helping those in need.
Forgive us, as a country, for producing so much of the world’s trash and destroying your beautiful world.
Forgive us, as a people, for not being good stewards of our resources.
Please God, forgive us.”

The woman on TV was praying for God to honor her greed.
I was praying for God to forgive mine.

The candle room is still a mess.
Mom and I didn’t really accomplish a lot on our first Mom Monday,
but maybe Mom Mondays aren’t about accomplishing things.
The woman on TV won $60.
I fell asleep and awoke headache-free to a text from my sister saying that she was going to take the candles that I’d let burn this afternoon.
I suggested she not burn them all at once, though,
Lest they make her sick.
And then I smiled because redemption visited my house again today.