Under Construction

My house is under major construction! Because of some changes in our insurance policy, it is necessary for us to do some serious repairs before the insurance company will renew our homeowner's policy.  My parents (God bless them!) are providing the funds to have a new aluminum roof put in place, and that should eliminate our leak issues.  Hallelujah!  All of the other repairs are things that we can do ourselves, albeit they are taking a lot of time and effort.  Jason's work schedule has been pretty hectic, so he hasn't been able to do much on the repairs thus far.  Fortunately, my dad has been over every day, and together, we've been tackling the windows.

For a small house, my home has a lot of windows (17, to be exact).  The paint around the windows was chipping to the point that some of the wood was beginning to rot.  So, for the past week, my dad and I have been scraping, sanding and cleaning all the window frames.  Let me tell you, it's a chore!

My dad is quite a perfectionist when it comes to things like this, so he wanted to scrape and sand all the way down to the bare wood, which was buried under what seemed like 15 layers of paint.  On the first day, I was with him 100 percent.  Yes, if we were going to go through all the work and effort, we might as well do it right.  But by the end of the second day, I really didn't care anymore.  My body hurt in places I didn't even know I had.  I had dust and paint chips in my hair, my clothes, my eyes, my nose and any place else they could manage to get.  Yep, by the third day, I was ready to say, "Let's just knock off the loose paint, sand it down somewhat smooth and paint over it.  I really don't care anymore!"  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), my dad stuck by his principles and insisted that we do the job right.

So, as I scraped and scraped and scraped, I tried to imagine how awesome the windows are going to look when they're finished, and I admit, it helped. . . a little.  But another thought came to me as well, and it was this thought that made me smile and brought peace to my tired, little body.  Aren't you glad God doesn't give up on us when the work is difficult?  Isn't it a blessing to know that He is committed to doing the best job He can on us because He knows that the end result will be worth it?

Imagine God scraping away at the layers of pride, bitterness, anger and other sins that have caked up in our lives over time.  The endless work it takes to make us like Christ.  The hours, days, weeks and even decades of careful attention, constantly working to make us what we ought to be.  He could cut corners.  After all, He's God.  Who's going to tell Him He can't?  He could take shortcuts or decide that there's simply too much effort involved to continue the process.  But He doesn't!  In fact, He isn't even tempted to do so because He loves us far too much to leave us in the mess we're in.

Just like my house, we're all under construction.  The difference is that we can count on the fact that our Master Builder won't make any mistakes or cut any corners.  I'm not sure I can honestly say the same for myself, though I am going to try to do my very best.  After all, the results will be that much more rewarding!  God feels the same way about us.  What a blessing!

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: - Philippians 1:6