Cathy's Corner

Cathy’s Corner

 

There’s something about painting a room and cleaning everything from top to bottom that just makes me smile. Not that I do it very often, as you would see if you came to my house. But we’ve lived in this house for two years now and it needed painting when we moved in. Things were so hectic in our lives at the time that it was just move and get it over with, no time for painting. Within a matter of two weeks our house had finally sold in Lubbock and Gary had been offered a teaching job so we could finally buy a new house. It was the end of July, Gary was starting his new teacher orientation, and we had stored all of my mother’s stuff and a lot of ours as well in our garage because we had moved into a rent house. Add Sunday school promotion and senior year starting for our daughter and you get the picture, JUST MOVE!

So our youngest daughter moved into an apartment last week. Now that is a whole different story that I could go into but I’ll spare you today. So her bedroom and closet was empty and I decided last Friday that it would be the perfect time to paint before we moved anything into it. I’d been putting it off for two years. First I cleaned all the cob webs, windows and window sills, the light fixture and the chipped baseboards. Then I taped everything, bought my paint and by Saturday morning I was ready to paint. And that I did. Everything was going great and I finished and decided that we (I) should paint the third bedroom as well since we were going to move furniture from that room to the other room. So I did the same prep work in there. Then I looked at the first room and it was streaked. I couldn’t figure out why. I studied those walls and I talked out loud to myself and to Gary and I couldn’t figure it out. But the obvious answer was going to be as bad as I hated to admit it, a second coat. Then we moved all the furniture in place and the rooms were nice and in order. Once everything was completed, second coat and all and even the closet too, I was quiet pleased with the results and my hard work. So much that I kept going into the rooms turning on the lights and looking at how well they had turned out.

It’s kind of like life. Year after year as we grow up things happen and we get hurt or we get angry or insert any kid of emotion here you want. Some times we just stuff all that down inside and don’t deal with and it starts to layer on top of each other. Cobwebs grow over some of those hurts, a film develops over that anger, some chips get taken out of our heart and our light just doesn’t shine quite like it used to. But then it happens; it is time to clean it all out and if we allow God, He can come in and clean out the cobwebs, wash away the film, brighten up the light inside of us and even repair the chips in our heart. It isn’t easy by any means. Sometimes there are streaks that have to have a second coat because it’s just more than one coat can cover. Just like painting last week, there is a lot of prep work, and sweat, blood and tears involved. But it’s so worth it. Because the result is a brighter smile, a softer exterior, burdens lifted that make the load so much lighter. He puts everything in place and in order even the closet.  Sure sometimes it involves two coats to finally get the end result but once again it’s so worth it. And I can only imagine God looking down, turning on the light and watching us for a few moments. He smiles at the result of His handiwork.

 

Have a great day in the Lord.

And no, I’m not up for hire.