Raise Your Eyes

At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. Daniel 4:34

As my boys and I were sitting around our dining room table beginning our school day, I caught a whiff of something quite pungent in the air. I chalked it up to my imagination until I realized it was getting stronger and wasn’t going away. Since the occasional nasty smell permeates my home (two teenage boys), my tolerance for stinky odor might be a little higher than some. I’m pretty quick at figuring out the source, but this time was an exception. There was no need for reminders of manners because no way this was coming from them. Besides there not being any smirks, grins, giggles, or outright guffaws, it smelled of bleach or chlorine mixed with plastic. I was clueless.

I asked the boys if they noticed it because if they could smell it, I knew we had a problem. Frankly, their nose sensitivity went out the door a long time ago! I think that’s for survival. Anyhow, they agreed it was starting to stink like crazy. The search was on for the origin of our problem. When my oldest said it reminded him of the smoldering house that recently was on fire near us, I kicked it into high gear.

We were like bloodhounds as we walked around nose first trying to determine if it was coming from the vents, appliances, downstairs, or even outside. When we met back at the dining table, we agreed it was definitely coming from that specific area, and it wasn’t getting any better. My oldest asked if it could be coming from the lightbulb above the table. Seriously? How did we forget that it was just flashing? We said it was burning out within the past half-hour. Yet, it had stayed on; we didn’t expect that.

When I got to studying them, the bulbs looked like they had brown tar melted on them. If we wouldn’t have taken time to really look down in the coils, could there have been a fire? After getting the lights shut off, I called my hubby to see if this could be a bulb issue or an electric issue. It ended up not being the electric that was the problem, and I finally got matching bulbs throughout my house the next day! Woo hoo!

Fine, maybe it seems a little weird that matching lightbulbs would make me do a jig. Sure, not everyone would see having lights where three out of the four bulbs were different and very noticeable would care. Me? I was thrilled with our new purchase. I swear the guys never noticed, but that was to me what wearing Realtree and Mossy Oak together would be to them. Now that might make them say, “How uncivilized.” Never mind, they probably actually do that too.

This would’ve been solved way quicker if we started right there where we were sitting. Instead, we had to search everywhere else and question each other before realizing the answer was above us. Sound familiar? Ever do that? I’m guessing many of us do. We recognize something stinks a bit. We don’t trust that little nudge and try to ignore it until it gets too bad to be ignored. Then, we start questioning everyone around us; we’re trying to see if others agree with what we’re “smelling.” Next, we search all over for an answer to our problem. If we have the right people, we’ll probably be led towards a positive solution. If not, your house could burn down!

Three lessons I learned from our smelly adventure would be to not ignore the stink, choose Godly council, and most importantly…start by looking up. I challenge you to raise your eyes! Your solution might be much simpler than you think.