Expect glitches

      
Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. - Isaiah 64:8
      
With all the snow, ice and wind, this winter has been a good time for hubby and I (mostly hubby) to work on some indoor projects. Like taking down and boxing up all of David’s baseball trophies and other memorabilia, pulling off the Loony Tunes wallpaper border in his bedroom (which he hasn’t used in 10 years), and repainting the Irish green walls. It took two coats of off-white paint to thoroughly cover the green. Then hubby sanded the woodwork and brushed on a coat of polyurethane.      

The only problem he had with that project was when the electric baseboard heater, which he loosened from the wall so he could paint behind it, fell over while it was turned on. A section of blue-turned-black carpeting had to be replaced. Thank God we had an identical remnant of carpet for the patch and thank God the house didn’t burn down.
      
The room now looks like a proper guest bedroom instead of a baseball shrine.
      
The next project was to replace the carpeting in the upstairs bathroom with self-stick tiles. Now, in any project, little glitches are to be expected, but not big ones – like replacing all the plumbing.
      
Since the 30-year-old sink fixtures were corroded, I bought new ones. After several trips to town, we replaced the plumbing not only in the sink, but also in the shower and commode. Maybe we should break down and get a water conditioner. But the life expectancy of the new fixtures is now probably longer than ours.
      
The next project is to tear up the carpeting in the dining room, which the cat for some reason thinks is a litter box, and replace it with laminate wood flooring. Since we can’t find a match to the light pine laminate hall flooring that we put down – 20 years ago? – and since the hall and dining room are connected, we’ll also have to replace it. More time. More work. More money. Sigh.
      
And I thought 35 years ago when we began building the house that someday we’d be finished. Ha!
      
Isn’t that like the project God is working on in us? He works on us room by room, smoothing out the rough spots, removing the corroded areas, cleaning, replacing, improving, working until that room is to His satisfaction.
      
Oh, He runs into glitches, all right – when we refuse to let Him work. Or when we undo the work He’s already done.
      
But He doesn’t give up. Instead, with loving hands, He keeps right on working, redoing what we’ve messed up, working, working, one room after another, until finally we are all He plans and purposes for us to be.
      
I have to remind myself to be patient – with myself and with others – because the finished product won’t be ready until Jesus returns: “And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you” (Philippians 1:6 Amplified).
      
Oh, what a day that will be!

      
May I have a pliable spirit, Lord, as You work with me. Help me to be patient with myself and with others. Amen.  

 Special-Tea: Read 2 Corinthians 5:17; Psalm 138:8