USGN Article -February 2003
Terry & Barbi Franklin
By: Terry Franklin

Candles and Car-Seat Covers

Barbi and I are coming up on our 20th year of marriage, and among the many things we have accumulated through the years is a boat-load of candles. Admittedly, I have contributed greatly to this. It works like this: In advance of every Christmas I am desperately looking for some kind of stocking-stuffer for Barbi (usually on Christmas Eve). It’s challenging because the stocking is limited in space, and because we typically have bought stocking gifts that are fairly inexpensive. What to do?

So I always end up in these “Bath & Body” type places – you know, the kind that sell candles, body oil, and espouse the wonders of Aromatherapy.

A candle. Yeah, that’ll do the trick. Unfortunately, it has done the trick so many times over the years (what a perfect birthday gift!) that we have accumulated dozens of candles. And they all end up in a box in the attic.

But for some strange reason we rarely use the candles and some of them are designed to burn for weeks. In fact, I’m confident that there are two in our bathroom that we acquired as wedding presents!

Recently, as I was looking at the candles, I was reminded of people that, upon buying a new piece of furniture or a lamp, immediately put a plastic cover over the top of it. The same with cars – Have you ever known someone who bought a new car and then put seat covers on the seats because they knew they’d sell the car someday? Folks used to do that years ago. Does anyone remember those seat covers with the elastic straps that would come around the back of the seat? Real pretty, huh?

Over the holidays, Barbi and I made a decision to burn the candles…I mean all of them. And we are not feeling guilty about it...it is so neat to bask in the warm glow of, not only our fireplace, but candlelight. In fact, we had some folks over for supper and the house looked like a Catholic Church on Good Friday!!

So here’s my encouragement to you: Use the candles, wear your “good” clothes more often, take those worn-out floor mats out of your car, and use the good dishes and real silverware. After all, do you really want to sell some of these things for a quarter at a garage sale someday?? You see, God gave you these things to enjoy BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU!

And for goodness sake, don’t even think of getting seat covers…

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