CoffeeSwirls

Spring Cleaning Overhaul

Coffeeswirls Weekly Bible - Week 21

This has been a busy weekend! Our home has become a bit messy over the last few years... OK, it's a pigsty. Tina's mother came over and we have been cleaning, throwing out clothes that Ben (and I) have outgrown, dismantling the shower door and just general deep cleaning. I'm not joking when I say that the house was getting out of control, either. It was to the place that we were ready to just throw up our arms and start over.

Cathi came bright and early, donuts in hand, and got right to business. I cringed as she marched upstairs to the bedrooms and looked upon a convoluted mess. Without a mention of how bad it was, she grabbed trash bags and started filling them, some with trash and many with outgrown clothing. I took 8 large garbage bags of clothing to Goodwill Friday. That's right. Eight!

I did have a bit of a scare carrying down the shower doors, by the way. I was carrying one down by it's handle, similar to how you would carry a suitcase. It was just fine as I walked on the carpet, but as soon as I was entering the garage, the "handle" let go of the door and it dropped. I don't know if it first hit the concrete of the garage or the hard tile of the entry way first, but it shattered into a zillion pieces all around me, and I was barefoot. I froze in a bizarre position, looking like a cross between a confused mime and a marionette with uneven strings, while all around me the tempered glass crackled. I was a statue standing in a bowl of Rice Crispies! I was fortunate enough to only have a few minor cuts, and after checking myself over and sweeping up the mess, I was good to go.

We worked from early morning to late at night, and the preliminary results are awesome! Our bedroom seems bigger, probably because we got rid of one of our dressers. It really served as a final resting place for Tina's clothes she doesn't wear any longer and a TV stand, really. We also got rid of the nightstands that we had been using, and took the (nicer) bed stands from the closet and set them up. Who would have thought that the better option was hiding in a closet all along? There were some posters from my single days that are heading to the curb as well. I don't mind losing the picture of the Lamborghini or the movie poster of the Blues Brothers, but I don't know if I want to trash the picture of Dick Butkis. Maybe Pastor Host will want it. He's a Chicago Bears fan, after all. It's a thought.

The bathroom upstairs has really come along as well. Without sounding too feminine, let me say that the flowery shower curtain and the candles are a nice touch. We now have towels hanging from the wall that are not to be used. I don't get that concept, but I defer to the ladies on that one. The real test will be when I get soap in the eyes. Do I grab the pretty towels or just howl in pain? To the married guys out there, what do you do? Logic says that form follows function, but I don't want to call down the wrath of the Mrs. you know.

Ben's room has been stripped. His dresser was falling apart, so away it went. We also took out his carpet and the padding. We're thinking about filling the cracks in the boards, perhaps with wood glue, and painting the floor. Does anyone have experience or ideas on how to go about this? And speaking of floors, we bought some carpet remnants to replace carpet that had been ruined by the daycare that the previous owners had as well as the dog we have. It was a pretty penny, but I believe it will all be worth it. This project would never have started if it weren't for Cathi diving in.

In a way, that's what God does for us. Our lives without Him are a mess. The junk builds and builds no matter what we do, and eventually it reaches a point where we are ready to throw up our arms. Where would we even begin to clean up this mess? We're ashamed to let anyone see past our front door for the fear that we will be judged by what's under the roof. We've made efforts throughout the years, but they just don't cut the mustard, you know?

When a person first turns to God, he begins a renovating process that is never complete until we stand face-to-face with Him. God loves us just as we are, but is not content to leave us this way. He is continually removing the dross from our lives. To remove dross from silver, it needs to be heated to a very high temperature until it melts. The dross (impurities) come to the top and must be skimmed off the top time and again. In days past, the silversmith would know the dross was removed when they could see their face in the silver, due to it's mirror-like properties.

That's what God does. He turns up the heat to bring our imperfections into the open, then He removes them. This process continues throughout our lives until He sees Himself in our lives. Of course, since there is no perfect human on this earth, God continues to transform us until the day we join Him.

Cathi is removing the dross from our house. Sure, she turned up the heat on us a bit, but it was overdue. We're going "out with the old, in with the new" in a dramatic fashion here, so my posts will be sporadic for a while longer. In the end, though, Tina and I will once again respect our home and will want to invite others to visit with us in our home.