FROM: Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
ABOUT ME: Living the highs and lows of life in the adventurous pursuit of God Himself and of who I'm meant to be as the Bride of Christ.
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Friday, July 24, 2009,6:50 p.m.
PAINTING ON A SPIRITUAL LEVEL
So.....I have not blogged in a while.
It's because I have been painting.
The walls in my stairwell.
A hundred times.
At least.
I mean, at least it feels like it.
Actually, I'm up to the third coat done, and I may need one more on one of the walls. Painting in a 3-foot (at most)-wide stairwell is ticklish at best. Using a 45-pound ladder up and down the stairs increases the difficulty level fairly significantly and having to do it at least one more time than I would have wanted makes it difficult and fairly frustrating.
(As a side note, putting masking tape on the edges of an entire flight of carpeted stairs in evil. It becomes pure evil when it needs to be done three times. I'm not sure what it will be if it has to be done a fourth time except possibly so evil that its fall from grace is complete and without a chance of redemption at all.)
I'm wondering what sort of spiritual analogy I could come up with for my stairwell, which has been so long under construction that it has officially reached "hobby" status (since it included the removal of an unwanted piece of moulding and a good deal of drywall work before I even painted). My stairwell being my hobby is a relatively sad commentary on both the amount of work put in and also my life. But what remarkably deep spiritual insight can I draw from this latest project that has kept me from blogging for so long?
Perhaps that our lives are like the stairwell - that God removes the unwanted and even obstructive parts of our characters, smooths them out and redresses our lives until they begin to reflect a small measure of His own beauty and perfection?
Hmm.... Possible, but my stairwell is far from even a reflection of the perfect nature of God, so....
Or that all this work done on my stairwell has reminded me once again the need for patience in everything, and has been re-schooling me in the art of allowing things to be done slowly and even repeatedly so that they are done correctly? (If I blogged that, I wouldn't pretend that I actually learned the patience lesson - I instead might have yelled at the walls a time or .... six.)
Or perchance I could blog on God's redemptive work, and the parallel of this once disastrous stairwell, being all beat up and in need of master's touch, which is now a thing of beauty, virtually unrecognizable from its former self. (I actually can't blog on that one either, for the simple reason that the poor stairwell was never privileged to receive a master's touch. It got me. I'm not a hack, but I'm also not a master. The blog concept falls apart when it's just me doing the work....)
So, since none of my brilliantly insightful blog ideas are going to come to pass, I will not stretch the spiritual aspect of paint any further, but simply show you a couple of before and (almost) after pictures.
Blessings!
Before (before I even purchased the house!)
During (including the removal of the moulding and evening out and filling the drywall join that was underneath)
And after! (It occurs to me that all these pictures are of the upper half of the stairwell - there was also a downstairs - the entrance to the garage. And obviously I have to put face plates back on the light switches and put the banisters back up!)
It's because I have been painting.
The walls in my stairwell.
A hundred times.
At least.
I mean, at least it feels like it.
Actually, I'm up to the third coat done, and I may need one more on one of the walls. Painting in a 3-foot (at most)-wide stairwell is ticklish at best. Using a 45-pound ladder up and down the stairs increases the difficulty level fairly significantly and having to do it at least one more time than I would have wanted makes it difficult and fairly frustrating.
(As a side note, putting masking tape on the edges of an entire flight of carpeted stairs in evil. It becomes pure evil when it needs to be done three times. I'm not sure what it will be if it has to be done a fourth time except possibly so evil that its fall from grace is complete and without a chance of redemption at all.)
I'm wondering what sort of spiritual analogy I could come up with for my stairwell, which has been so long under construction that it has officially reached "hobby" status (since it included the removal of an unwanted piece of moulding and a good deal of drywall work before I even painted). My stairwell being my hobby is a relatively sad commentary on both the amount of work put in and also my life. But what remarkably deep spiritual insight can I draw from this latest project that has kept me from blogging for so long?
Perhaps that our lives are like the stairwell - that God removes the unwanted and even obstructive parts of our characters, smooths them out and redresses our lives until they begin to reflect a small measure of His own beauty and perfection?
Hmm.... Possible, but my stairwell is far from even a reflection of the perfect nature of God, so....
Or that all this work done on my stairwell has reminded me once again the need for patience in everything, and has been re-schooling me in the art of allowing things to be done slowly and even repeatedly so that they are done correctly? (If I blogged that, I wouldn't pretend that I actually learned the patience lesson - I instead might have yelled at the walls a time or .... six.)
Or perchance I could blog on God's redemptive work, and the parallel of this once disastrous stairwell, being all beat up and in need of master's touch, which is now a thing of beauty, virtually unrecognizable from its former self. (I actually can't blog on that one either, for the simple reason that the poor stairwell was never privileged to receive a master's touch. It got me. I'm not a hack, but I'm also not a master. The blog concept falls apart when it's just me doing the work....)
So, since none of my brilliantly insightful blog ideas are going to come to pass, I will not stretch the spiritual aspect of paint any further, but simply show you a couple of before and (almost) after pictures.
Blessings!
Before (before I even purchased the house!)
During (including the removal of the moulding and evening out and filling the drywall join that was underneath)
And after! (It occurs to me that all these pictures are of the upper half of the stairwell - there was also a downstairs - the entrance to the garage. And obviously I have to put face plates back on the light switches and put the banisters back up!)
Tuesday, July 07, 2009,7:04 p.m.
YOU ARE SERVING THE LORD CHRIST
I like this passage:
"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." (Colossians 3:23-24)
In a world where even so many of us Believers have a need to find fulfillment in how highly others think of us or how well we perform at our jobs, these two short verses give me a lot of perspective.
So even if I at times work unto exhaustion and feel that I have not received the proper kudos - whatever the circumstance - I will remember this phrase:
So even if I at times work unto exhaustion and feel that I have not received the proper kudos - whatever the circumstance - I will remember this phrase:
You are serving the Lord Christ.
Our reward is coming.