#665. The shelf that holds your Bible in the bathroom. A love letter.

Dear shelf,

I don’t even know where to start this letter, you long rectangular piece of wood attached to the wall above the urinals in the bathroom at church, you.

I saw you just last weekend after the worship service, and I thought to myself, “There you are. You’re great.” I looked at your ample shelf, a flat surface that seems to say, “Hey, got a heavy Bible? Here, let me hold that for you. Go ahead, I’ll shoulder that burden while you’re in the bathroom.”

I think about you sometimes during the week when I’m at work. That’s when I miss you the most. You’re not there, there’s no shelf for me to put my work notebook on. I have two options, place it on the counter by the sink, which is inevitably a wet swamp of bathroom grossness or do that awkward chicken wing thing and clamp one arm tightly against my body and try to stay perfectly still so that the notebook doesn’t slowly slide out of my grasp and fall into the urinal.

That doesn’t happen at church though. At church, you’re there. And you’re so brave. You don’t just hold small Bibles, you open your arms to thick encyclopedia, 19 pound life application models. Car keys? Bring it. A coffee cup? Go ahead, get your shelf on.

Do girls have a shelf in their bathroom too? Do you have a counterpart that holds purses? Is there a stall version of you providing service across the hall to the ladies? So many questions!

Is there anything you can’t do? If you ever start dating the crock pot, the other source of my church associated love, I hope you two crazy kids decide to have children. Can you imagine that combination? A long flat crock pot, a trough if you will, that offered delicious casseroles to you in between church and Sunday School in the bathroom?

OK, maybe that wouldn’t work. You should probably stay single, like Paul.

But regardless of who you date, you’ll always have a special place in my heart.

Side hugs, Razzle Dazzle and Bibles that don’t get wet,

Jon