Now that we have a new front door and the roof is nearly on, tasks of somewhat lesser importance can be begun. This past week, I took on a task myself that I’ve always been just a mere helper on before, but this time I was It! That task was painting the exterior of the house. Now our house, for the time we’ve been acquainted with it, has been white with chocolate brown trim. Pretty, but actually a little boring, especially with a white roof. When it became clear that it needed to be painted (blistered and missing paint was our first clue), it occurred to me that I didn’t have to stick with white, so we chose a nice, soft lemon yellow to replace the white walls.
Armed with four gallons of paint, new brushes and rollers, and enthusiasm, I cleared the grass and flotsam from next to the first wall and began to prepare to paint. All Stop! First, I needed to scrape the old, loose stuff away. Yuck. Hard work. Little paint chips flying and sticking in hair. Sore arms after just a few minutes. Discouragement.
Karl to the rescue! Power tools, yes. He fitted a wire rotary brush on the end of a drill and sent me back to work. Alright! This is more like it. In a short time, the first wall was actually ready to paint. Now, with Third Day playing in my ears, I spent the afternoon slapping paint on a wall. I love painting outside, I don’t have to worry about making too much of a mess, and the truth is I’m a very messy painter. A few hours later, the first wall was done. Yay! So far, I’ve completed the whole downstairs part of the exterior of the house. What I have left is the upstairs parts of the two ends. This might get a bit tricky – since long ladders are going to be needed for parts of it, but I’m still feeling pretty confident that I can do this.
Of course, as I’ve worked, I’ve thought about how I can turn this house painting project into an object lesson about life or my Christian walk. Several maxims appear: No matter how pretty the paint, if you paint over a rotten board, the result will be unsatisfactory. Taking time to remove the old, bad, dilapidated, and worn out before adding a new cover gets the best result. Removing sin and bad habits hurts like a wire brush, but it’s worth it in the end. Life is messy. Yellow paint in my hair doesn’t make me a blond.
Our back patio
Okay, I could go on and on now that I’m on a roll…but I’ll quit. For today, I think the lesson I’m going to claim is this: Life happens one brush stroke at a time. If I focus on the patch directly in front of me, I see doable, attainable progress as opposed to feeling overwhelmed by a big job. Life is a big job.
