I’ve encountered many mysteries as a parent. Back in the day, our most common mystery went something like this: Chocolate milk has been spilled on the kitchen floor. I call in my two sons and ask, “Who did it?”
“I didn’t do it,” they both reply.
“Who left the living room light on last night?”
“I didn’t do it,” they repeat.
“Who left the toilet unflushed?”
“I didn’t do it.”
For nearly 18 years, we had mysterious things happening in our house, and to this day, no one did it. I know my wife didn’t do it, and I know I didn’t do it. That left only two other people, who both said they didn’t do it, either.
At that point, I could come to only one conclusion: our home was somehow built over a spot in the Earth where all natural laws of physics were suspended. And it only became this way when my family moved in. The previous family had no problems with milk spilling or toilets becoming unflushed. The lights didn’t have the ability to turn off and on at their own discretion. Only when my family moved in did these things start occurring.
But that’s not the mysterious part of this story. The real mystery came when my sons moved out of the house, and all of these occurrences suddenly stopped. They didn’t decrease gradually, but ended overnight. I was grateful, because sometime after that, we sold our house. I would have hated to reveal that house’s idiosyncrasies to the new owners.
But my new house has a different problem: my closet. When I hang up my clothes, they’re one size. When I return later and take them out, I discover they’ve shrunk ever so slightly. Since the change was so subtle, I didn’t notice it at first. But the more time my clothes spend in the closet, the more shrinkage occurs.
I’ve had other people who have verified to me that this same thing happens in their closets, so I know I’m not going crazy. But it took me a while to catch on what this closet was doing. At first, I began to notice a tightness in the armpits. The closet tries to fool you, because everyone knows armpits can’t get fatter. Then, the opening for your head gets smaller, and again, everyone know you can’t get a fat head. Next, there is a slight tightening across the stomach, and the hems of your shirts begin to rise.
I wouldn’t have been too upset if this had happened to only one of my shirts, but it seems to be a closet-wide phenomenon. And it’s only my closet that does this. My wife has had clothes hanging in her closet for years that don’t seem to shrink at all.
So I’m standing there wearing a shirt that my closet has shrunk three sizes, the blood to my head cut off by the tightness of the collar. The armpits are hitched up about two inches higher than normal, causing me to resemble a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and there is an inch-wide band of whiter-than-snow flesh showing, with my belly button as the star attraction.
“What should I do?” I ask my wife.
“Put it in the Goodwill sack,” she says.
And then it dawns on me. This mystery is the result of a conspiracy by Goodwill and other organizations. They must have set aside at least one closet in every home and given it the strange ability to shrink clothes. My closet is the chosen one in my house. But how they accomplish this is a mystery to me.
Did you know the Bible also talks about a mystery? The Apostle Paul, writing to the church says, “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people” (Col. 1:26).
The word “mystery” occurs 21 times in Paul’s letter. But when he writes about this mystery, he says it’s no longer a mystery. God’s plan for salvation is now extended to include all people, of all races, of all ages and all social statuses. It includes the “whosoevers” of life, as in “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13 KJV). That’s why this mystery is now called the Good News. And all of this was revealed to us by His Son, Jesus Christ.
Yes, my friends, there are many mysteries in life. But one has been solved. If you want life and life to the fullest (cf. John 10:10), ask Jesus to take over your life and begin to follow his teachings.
Now, off to solve the other mysteries that surround my house. I’m pretty sure my grandsons will be the next to tell me, “I didn’t do it.”
