Drinking and Stripping

Tuesday was officially the first day that ALL my kids were in school ALL day long!

So what did I do all day?!?

I drank Perrier (sparkling water) to refresh myself on my breaks from stripping wallpaper in the loft (our playroom/library area).  Woo-hoo!  What a hot, sweaty party!

Today my hands are aching...actually, I think my whole body is aching.  Plus there is still more work to do!  Since my "day" really only exists between 11:00 (after dropping Josiah off at school #2) and 2:30 (when it's time for everyone to start coming home or needing to be picked up), I've got at least another day or two of work to do on that room before I can start the real pre-paint prep process of sanding, washing walls, and taping.  I'm also still working some in the basement, but since I'm using the same paint colors in both areas it just made sense in my twisted mind to paint both areas at the same time. 

Before we bought our first home, I loved wallpaper!  It was sooooo pretty and sophisticated.  Oh, yeah, we bought a house covered in wallpaper.  It was beautiful...until....

We bought that house before Josiah was born.  My sweet baby boy.  He was so precious.  Whenever we'd sit him in timeout, he'd quietly pick at the edges of the wallpaper in the main hallway.  Gradually he began removing pieces and strips.  So before Elijah was born, the crazy pregnant lady decided to strip all the wallpaper and repaint the entire house.  (Hmmmm..do you see a theme in my life yet?)

Stripping wallpaper is always such an adventure!  First of all, you never know just how well that paper is stuck on there until you try taking it off.  Secondly, you never know what you are going to find underneath that first layer of paper.  Oh, the stories home improvement projects tell!

In that first home, I learned that the home owners were also great do-it-yourself-ers.  There had been wallpaper on the walls prior to the layer I was removing.  How did I know?  Because they got lazy when stripping the original paper and left bits and pieces underneath.  Ugh!  More work for me!

Up in the loft yesterday, other secrets and mysteries were discovered.  Nope, no previous paper.  In fact, no previous paint job.  When that area was finished the first time, it was papered from the chair rail up.  However, I am discovering gouges in the wallboard and other flaws and imperfections.  Have I mentioned how much I love my spackle and putty knife?  Fun, fun, fun!  Then I'll get to go back and sand out all those imperfections and repairs!

Home improvement, do-it-yourself projects are such a wonderful time for me to be alone with God and my thoughts.  Miranda was actually puzzled when she got home yesterday and noted that I didn't have any music playing while I worked.  But I sometimes just enjoy talking to and listening to God while I'm working away.

As I stuggled with wallpaper yesterday, I pondered just how much our lives are like the walls I was working with.  We wear so many masks to to hide and cover our flaws and imperfections.  Our pretty outside to the world can project so many different images, but underneath the facade our lives may be in crumbling ruins.

God, the master designer, desires to come into our lives and remove all these layers and layers of our do-it-yourself fixes.  The process is painful and can be very slow.  Not only are our hidden imperfections revealed in the process, but the chemicals or water and sharp tools used in the removal process can scar and damage the surface too.

Once our former coverings have been stripped away, what is left behind may at first glance appear so damaged, ugly, and scarred.  But our God holds in his hand the blueprints of our life.  He is our Creator and Designer.  He knows the plans He has for our life.  He desires to creat something so beautiful!  He fills the voids and gouges with divine spackle.  He sands off all our rough edges.  The color He adds is breathtakingly extraordinary, beyond our wildest imaginings.

God sees beyond our wallpaper, beyond our damage life, and sees beauty through His eyes of love...mercy...and forgiveness.

II Corinthians 5:17 
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Ephesians 4:22-24
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

Gotta get back to life today.  There's a fruit salad calling my name.  Just imagine, with all the other things that I do, the people in my house still expect clean clothes and food to eat.  Go figure?