Our household is embarking on another great adventure of sorts, or at least a pretty major undertaking. See, we've been living in this place for 10 years, and frankly it was high time to update things. The carpets, which weren't the highest quality to begin with, are in bad shape, with 10 years worth of kids and puppy. The countertops were rather pathetic to begin with. The appliances were wearing out - we'd already had to replace the fridge.
Frankly, we had planned on doing all of this about 4 years ago. We had purchased some beautiful hardwood flooring - enough to do the entire downstairs. Since the project was going to be starting soon, and we weren't supposed to store it outside or even in the garage, we stacked the boxes of flooring up in the living room. Then my business hit a lull, and we've been bumping along in existence mode ever since, only now reaching the point where we could afford to actually move ahead. So for 4 years there's been this pile of boxes sitting in the living room, staring at me accusatorially.
So the primary work so far has been preparing for the startup. I'm not going to pretend to be Mr. Handyman - we're hiring a contractor to do all of the actual work. But before they can come in to do the work, we've had to get the place ready. They'll move the major furniture around, but all of the rest of the stuff had to go. And OH MY! What a lot of stuff!
It's Sunday morning, they're coming to start in earnest tomorrow. During a conversation with my wife this morning, it began to dawn on me that the whole process is a pretty apt analogy to my relationship with God.
Before we can start to rip up the carpets and vinyl in preparation for the new hardwoods and tile, we had to clear all of the crap out of the way. This involved going through everything in the downstairs - everything - and asking the question: "Does it stay or does it go?" Knick knacks that we've purchased. Pictures. Things that have been given to us as gifts. Old computers, cords, and other technolgical flotsam and jetsam. Do we keep the dog's bed or chuck it and get a new one? For the stuff we're going to get rid of, does it go in the garbage, into the recycle bin, to the Goodwill, or what? And those decisions aren't always easy. What about the memento gift that was given by someone important? That person is still important, but is the gift? If I chuck the gift, am I dishonoring them? Am I going to hurt their feelings?
I had to go through all of the files in my office and decide which documents needed to be kept and which would go into the shredder. Credit card statements from 2001. Carbon copies of checks that we had written in 2004. Investment statements showing just how much our net worth plummeted in the stock market crash a couple of years ago. I really thought I was going to burn out the shredder! Since I've been on the road every week, I've been working on this process over the past 4 weekends. Some of the stuff brought brief smiles to my face before it got gobbled up by the machine. Much more frequently I was asking myself the question "Why the **** have I hung on to this for so long?"
And then I ran across a letter from a family member. It came in the mail about 7 years ago and frankly was a lightning bolt that severed some very important relationships. I'm not going to pretend that I don't share some of the responsibility for the whole situation, but this letter was the catalyst. I didn't even realize that I had kept it - it was folded up, sitting in some obscure folder in my desk drawer. As I looked at it and realized what it was, I felt frozen - not sure whether from fear, or anger, or a combination of many different things. I laid it on the desk, not knowing what to do with it. This discovery happened about 3 weeks ago, and the letter has been sitting there, staring back at me every weekend since.
This morning, I started to reflect on the whole process. The analogy came to me that this whole process is much like how God works in my life. Before He can make any major renovations in me, He first cleans out the crap. "Why are you holding onto something that hurt you, that was said to you years ago Dale? Why are you feeling guilt over something that you did as a child? Let's just put that in the shredder, shall we? I want to install new, beautiful floors, but first we have to rip out these stained, ugly old carpets. I know that the demolition process is hard work, but I promise you that the end result will be worth the effort."
We all have emotional "stuff" in our lives, don't we? Some of it would fall into the category of things we purchased long ago but never met our expectations. Like the child who steals some toy from a store, the initial joy of having the toy is fleeting while the shame and regret for the deed hangs on for a very long time. God wants me to just let go of that. Stuff can be hung on us by others as well - like a gift given that we really don't want but feel guilty throwing away. It can hang there, affecting our personality and relationships.
And sometimes He tells us to wait, right? We rashly go out and buy the new materials, only to have it sit there, waiting for the day when we can actually make the change.
And while cleaning out all of this stuff IS hard work, when the rebuilding process actually does start, it is truly joyful. This last week, the contractor came in to do some preliminary demolition on the countertops so that measurements could be made for the new ones. My wife emailed me (I was in California) and said "I wish you were here so we could jump up and down and dance together!"
There is one part where this analogy breaks down, however. Our contractor has given us a precise, gant chart project schedule, laying out what tasks will happen when. Unfortunately, God doesn't give me one of those for the project He's conducting on me. I suspect He plans on continuing that particular remodel forever.
The letter, by the way, went into the shredder this morning.
