The White Elephant

The White Elephant

Someone gives you a kind, heartfelt gift and although you appreciate the gesture of the giver, sometimes the gift itself is not as easy to appreciate. You look at it and ask yourself, "To what event would I wear this awful tie? Where can I discreetly put this hideous knick knack? What am I going to do with yet another obscure kitchen gadget?" These are typical responses to things we don't really want yet somehow we find it difficult to get rid of them for whatever reason. These are our white elephants.

One of the biggest white elephants of all is pain. Something happens and suddenly we find ourselves holding a memory that we would like to dispose of yet somehow we can't. We look around our lives and try to figure out what to do with it. Should we put it on a shelf where we will constantly remember it? Should we take it out back and bury it? Should we alter it and wear it with pride? Pain does not dissolve on its own so we have to find a place for it in our psyche. Sometimes we decide to place it on the shelf of self-guilt and allow self-loathing to take control. Sometimes we plunk it in the knife drawer and seethe with a constant desire for revenge. Sometimes we shove it into the attic with forgotten things and wonder why our home is always filled with such an odd odor. Sometimes we put it in the front yard as an everlasting monument and take comfort in the sympathetic gazes of passersby. Whatever our decision, white elephants are not easy to hide. Speaking of hiding, perhaps the best place for our pain is in the closet, not hidden behind coats and golf clubs, but covered in the grace, mercy and blood of a Savior, because whatever we bolt down in our prayer closet can't stomp on us any longer.