A Jean Odyssey

This post is “an oldie but a goodie.” What that really means is that I meant to publish it a month ago and forgot. I happened to notice tonight that it still had “Draft” by the title. Oops. So as you read this, pretend the date is March 28….

I’ve been obsessed with buying new jeans this week. The jeans I’ve worn for the past three years will no longer do. I MUST have a new pair.

I’ve researched online and deliberated over sales. I’ve calculated coupons and cash back, looking for the best deal. Last night I actually went to a store, planning to buy the jeans I’d been eyeing. They didn’t have my size.

I went back to the store’s website, and during all of my deliberations they apparently had sold out of my size as well.

I’ve worked myself into quite a frenzy over this jeans business.

Want to know why? My son has a birthday party this weekend, and I’m anxious. I’m worried that no one will come, or that the cake will fall apart, or that I’ll forget to weed the front flower bed. So my brain picks something completely different and random to worry about. Like jeans.

A couple of weeks ago I was worried about a plane ride. I had to buy hot rollers that week.

While I really could use a pair of new jeans, sanity and peace are the true aims of my mind. No matter how great the jeans fit or how good a deal I get, they are a mirage of contentment.

I’m currently reading a Lenten devotional by N.T. Wright, and Monday’s selection included this thought:
“Perhaps, whenever something truly and massively important is afoot, it becomes the place where attack is concentrated, where Jesus’ friends will be distracted by so many immediate muddles and concerns that they risk missing the glorious thing that stands quietly in the centre, the gleaming diamond in the middle of the rubbish-heap.”

Friends, I’ve been hanging out in the rubbish heap. I’m reaching up my hands today so I can be pulled out, brushed off, and set to focusing on ‘the glorious thing’ in the center.

Update, a month later: I bought the jeans a day after I wrote this post. Two weeks later, they came apart at the seams. Glad my serenity and peace don’t depend on my clothes.