Remind me, don’t want to do it again very soon!

It’s kind of like long ago, in a world far away, when having a baby sounded like a great idea.

And then, the second push 9 months or so later, it’s like, remind me, don’t want to do it again very soon. And, yup- you forget. Three kids later, you kind of look at each other and say, “you were supposed to remind me, don’t want to do it again very soon.” There are moments we forget the pain, the agony, the big belly, the wonderful things that go along with having babies. No, I’m not pregnant! This 60 year plus mind is beyond that not to mention my body was over it 20 years ago… I am talking about remodeling!

Why not? We have had a leaking roof since we moved here in 97. Put my beautiful big grand piano in the front room and Jim’s comment was, “I think the roof leaks somewhere”. We found out the first time it rained. The leak was right above the grand. We moved the piano! There was no moving the leak in the roof. Fast forward to 2019 and there were moments when we had every bowl and a few pots and pans in the front room catching rain water. I would be sleeping, I love sleeping through thunderstorms, and suddenly awake thinking, “Gotta go put the pans out.” So, this was the year. After all, we had nothing else happening!!! Just kidding- two weddings, Baihley’s trailer, new septic system, well needed to be redone. Why not just put a new roof on the front room. My job was to gut the front room. Covid- no problem! We had lots of work to do. It was supposed to be a couple months. 6 months later, we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and thankfully it’s not holes in the ceiling! The dry wall is mudded, sanded and painted. We can move in and the floor will be finished when we get that far this winter.

I am tired of remodeling. We have done it with every house we have lived in, well I guess only 2, and the cabin. The kids used to crawl under the plastic to go upstairs to bed when we were working on the main floor. We have been living for 6 months with all the music equipment in the kitchen, big piano in the office, couches everywhere. If you lost your balance you would only have to lean back as there was a couch or chair every few feet. And now, it’s starting to look like a house again. The kitchen table is actually beautiful and not pushed back against the Kurtzweil. I can find my recording equipment, no longer hidden under plastic. And once again I said to Jim, “remind me, let’s not do this again very soon,,, or rather ever!”

There are some things in life that you just need to pull your big girl panties up and do it. We want the end result, but don’t want the middle moments. Living by faith, reminds us that there are lots of middle moments that we just need to zip the lip, put on the muck boots and walk through where God has led you to. We want to get to the other side of our faith challenge, but don’t want to get dirty, be inconvenienced or have to wait! There is a reason why the fruits of the spirit cause a bit of tension in our heart. More than once we are tempted to say, “God remind me, I don’t want to do that again very soon.” And it seems that God really doesn’t care. It’s not about what we want.

I wanted the remodeling done the end of March! Wasn’t gonna happen. Nope, the morning I drive my car out of the driveway to head for Tyler’s wedding (end of June) the remodeling begins. I missed the most exciting part. And it took longer because of this and that and then and because. Remind me Lord, in those moments when nothing is as easy as it seems, that I may not want to do it again very soon, but those days of waiting, those weeks of walking sideways to get to the couch make me humble. Guessing which place we put something we needed, and after four attempts to find it, decided we didn’t need it, reminds me that what I want and need sometimes changes. God will use these moments to give me perspective. I am appreciating the beautiful new room. Had I just walked out and walked back into my house and the work was done, it wouldn’t have been nearly as precious. Convenient yes! But we don’t deepen our faith with convenience. We need to be reminded that it’s daily walking or sidestepping and being thankful that we appreciate what it takes to remodel not just our houses but our hearts. It’s a slow process but well worth the struggle. Still, remind me that I really don’t want to do this again very soon.!