Sometimes in life, it’s hard to know what matters. The truth is, we don’t fully know what the future holds or the opportunities that God has in store for us. You may know what it is to find yourself in a season of being “in limbo”. In limbo, it feels like you’re doing the same thing every day, and nothing around you seems to change for the better. Nothing happening seems significant to your future or destiny.
During these times, it can be easy to feel discouraged or even to ask yourself, “Does what I’m doing even matter?”
This made me think of the story of a young adult who went through a terrible time in his life.
In a few short months, the young man lost his health and his job. At the same time, his girlfriend—who he thought was the love of his life—decided to leave him. After these things happened so quickly, he found it difficult to interview for a job. His once charismatic charm had been replaced by low spirits and a fear for his dwindling health. In seeing his waning confidence levels, potential employers didn’t want to take a chance and give him a job. This cycle went on for some time, only serving to crush his confidence even more. As the time passed, he wound up spending more and more time sitting by himself on an old blue chair in his living room.
Next to the chair, on the weathered wood flooring of his mid-century Victorian home, sat a red guitar. Without a stand, the guitar simply leaned against the arm of the chair. Its untrimmed strings getting caught in the blue fabric graciously served as the sole force keeping it from falling to the floor—at least on most days.
It was in this same house that the young man and his roommates once planned their futures. Together, they went to college, got their first jobs, several even met the women they would go on to marry.
Those days seemed so far away, now. With his roommates now gone, living out the very lives they’d planned like impossible story-book endings, he watched on Facebook as they started budding families and built exciting careers. Yet, here he still was. Still staring at those scuffed, old floors.
One day, hoping to distract himself from wallowing, he casually reached for the red guitar. Its rust-stained strings fought back against the pull of his grip, clinging to the blue polyester as if having planted roots in the old blue chair. For how long it sat there untouched, he wouldn’t have been surprised. Setting it on his lap, he clumsily began to make the shapes with his left hand, strumming the strings with his fingernail. He wasn’t very good, but he still remembered the few chords he’d learned back in high-school. Normally, he’d put it down after a few minutes as he’d done countless times before, taking it as a reminder of his lack of talent. This time, however, he kept playing. Poorly or not, it was better than doing nothing.
From that moment on, he began practicing more often. After a few weeks, he’d even managed to find his old guitar stand, liberating it from the unforgiving tangle of forgotten relics that were carelessly stored in the attic. He quickly re-assembled the stand and set the guitar upright. It now stood on prominent display, right by the fireplace.
Aside from the chair and the guitar, there wasn’t much to be seen in the living room—or the whole house, for that matter. His roommates had taken most of what they owned when they moved out after college. Around then, his plan had been to propose to his girlfriend. They would need to choose a home of their own, he reasoned, so it didn’t make sense to buy furniture for this home. Now, looking back wistfully on that time, he lamented over the barren room that lay before him, wondering if he would ever be able to afford to fill it. But, at least now he had one thing to look at while sitting in his blue chair.
As the days went on, every time he came home from a bad interview where he failed to make a good impression, or on the really bad days when he was too weak or depressed to leave the house, he would plop himself down in that blue chair. And every day, there sat his guitar, staring right at him. With nothing else to look at, it had his attention.
The young man never had any intention of becoming a “guitar hero”. He loved listening to acoustic guitar, but he never thought he’d have the will—much less the desire—to learn to play. And, although he was good at many things, guitar never came easily to him. When he’d tried the first time, after a few months of what felt like little progress, he abandoned it, deciding that it simply wasn’t his gifting.
But now, sitting there in that blue chair, he had a choice—think blue thoughts, or play the red guitar.
He was clumsy. He got frustrated often. But, to him, the choice was an easy one.
Several years later, his health had begun to improve. He began to feel a little better about life, and although he still didn’t have any new friendships to speak of—or even a full-time career—he’d still managed to get by, taking small repair jobs and some contracting work when his body permitted it. He spent his abundant free time learning all that he could and working on his home.
Those scuffed old floors were now smooth and polished, gleaming with the ambient reflection of newly installed lighting fixtures. He still didn’t have much to display, but he’d learned to make what he had beautiful. The landlord even gave him a tremendous break on rent because of the work he was doing and the great care he took of the property. In those short years, the home had nearly doubled in value. And of course, each evening before he sat down in his blue chair, he first walked over to the fireplace and picked up the red guitar. And, he played.
One day after he finished playing, as he got up to put it back on its stand, he began to reflect on the past few years. When he began, he was sure that playing guitar wasn’t possible for him. Now—to his great surprise—he was playing beautiful music. Although he couldn’t deny this, as he stood, paused in front of the guitar stand, a discouraging thought came to him.
“Does it even matter?”
“I am doing what I thought was impossible, but what good is playing guitar when I should be working like everyone else? What good is music, when I have no friends to share it with?”
Though it was a hard thought to process, he gently placed the red guitar back on its stand. Its new phosphor-bronze strings were wound perfectly; each end was clipped and manicured with pristine detail. Its body was now polished, nearly managing to outshine the new floors. In fact, even if there was more to look at in the living room, his guitar would still be the center attraction—and it knew it! It sat proudly by the fireplace, a far cry from its former neglected state, content to never again be planted in the arm of the blue chair.
Before retiring for the evening, the young man sighed quietly and took a slow, steady breath in and back out. By now, he’d learned how to better manage depressing thoughts when they came. He reminded himself that he would wake up the next morning, and he’d face the challenges that came with the day. Whatever they were, he would give his true best effort. And, of course, at the end of the day—whether it was a good day or a bad day—he would reach for his faithful friend, pouring out his trials and pain in music. With that, he took another breath, and he went upstairs to bed.
What the young man didn’t know is that in five years time, he would be playing his music and singing his songs for crowded stadiums. The lyrics that came from such deep pain, written in a time of total loneliness, would later end up connecting him to millions of people who felt the same way. His songs would encourage the hurting from every walk of life, helping them to keep going when they felt like they had no more strength.
In that time, he would come to realize four truths:
- Without the loss, he’d never have discovered his lyrics.
- Without the loneliness, he’d never have found the motivation to master what he wasn’t gifted at.
- Without the sickness, he’d never had grown the courage to stand when life seems impossible, or the wisdom to lie down when he needs to rest.
- And, without those scuffed floors, he’d never have experienced the joy of making something old into something beautiful, even when it wasn’t his to keep.
This story is to remind you that we all have a Blue Chair. No matter who you are in life, you’re bound to spend some time sitting in it. The truth about the Blue Chair is that there is no getting around it. What’s most important, however, is what you do in the Blue Chair.
I encourage you to reach for the Red Guitar—it’s never far away, and it often comes attached.
It may look impossible. It might not be your gifting. Maybe it’s out of view, but I encourage you to find that guitar, and put it where you’re going to see it every time you sit in that chair.
Make something beautiful with what you have. Don’t let yourself dwell on what you’ve lost. And, when you find yourself somewhere in the middle, in that lonely place called “in limbo”, don’t let yourself get discouraged when a contrary thought comes to visit.
It may just be that what you think doesn’t matter, really does matter after all.