Deleting the alphabet. In the end, the “Rs”remain

 Back in the days when we didn’t know any better, my siblings and I stuck our tongues out at each other and hurled childish names designed to inflict pain. Our little barbs were usually countered by the retort, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”   

Older, wiser, and more properly civilized, I now know that is not, and was not, true. Names do hurt. Words, although invisible to the eye and intangible to the hand do pierce and cut.

I’m not supporting name-calling, but I think our newly found super sensitivity to language is askew. Perhaps it’s the product of trying to have good without God.

We don’t say the “N” word (unless we happen to be speaking to each other) nor the “R” word, and not several of the “G” words—one because it slurs a nationality, the other because it acknowledges Deity. But, we tolerate the “F” word; even allowing it in the books almost every kid in public school reads as part of his/her literature program. Go figure.

I personally don’t like the “D” words. Whenever I feel niggled, I tell my husband I have the “Ds.”—Despair, depression, dismay, dejection, distress, disruption, destroy, disease, diet, death.

But then there are the other “R’ words. They are the best. They are the words of life, of hope, of healing. They represent the most numerous motifs of the Bible: Reform, restoration, rebirth, redemption, reunion, reconciliation, reward, reversal, and return.

The “R” words belong to those of us who know no matter how many of our rights, our words, our liberties get deleted, no matter how much we suffer the “D” words, we know we are the “people who can have tragedy in [our] heart and comedy in [our]head”* because no man can take the “Rs” away.

We live in a fall, but we will Rise.

“And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. And at last He will take his stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh, I shall see God.—Job 19:25

*G.K. Chesterton

The renovation winds down, the marriage survives, and God redeems a bad decision

Did you ever worry that you made a terrible decision and wondered if God would ever make it right? I did. My last three years read like a synopsis on the fall of woman:

1. Situated nicely—money in the bank, health solid, friends, and fame (well, not so much that). Wanders south to buy a house. (Husband trusts her judgment, lets her go alone.)

2. Beguiled by a blue plastic liner, buys a swimming pool with 100-year-old house attached.

3. Suffers consequences of bad decision: discovers rotten floor boards, broken water pipes, smelly wallpaper, mold and decay. Overwhelmed by magnitude of task, relationship with spouse and only friend within 700 miles strains, health suffers from sleepless nights, renovation consumes finances, jobs elude grasp, Lord does too.

This last renovation nearly did us in. I was big on vision but short on wisdom. (The yellow duct tape holding the front door frames together should have been a clue). Not only had I underestimated the financial costs, but also the emotional and psychological ones as well.

The dreadful realization we were over our heads stared us in the eye at three in the morning; it ate with us on paper plates of take-out; it sucked our joy, our strength and our vision. We didn’t know anyone, had no friends to come over and help carry sheets of plywood, or advise us, or cheer us on. I was known in the neighborhood simply as the lady with the dumpster.

I felt as though the Lord had left me to my mess, and I couldn’t see our way out.

I thought of how His disciples, friends, and family must have despaired to see Him hanging on that cross, to see Him die. The end, the hope, the king is dead. What now? Go home and wonder.

Mournful silence for three days.

Until that morning…God trumps death! He up and leaves the rocky tomb. And He makes a way for us to follow. That’s the great ending to the story: fallen, yes, but then redeemed, restored. Alleluia!

Meanwhile, as we undergo our sanctification, our stripping, and ripping, He sustains us. He reminds us that He is a God of restoration, of hope, and of redeeming bad decisions.

That’s what we had to keep in mind during the days of the Monster Restoration.

One day Bob brought home a bouquet of zinnias. We shook the sheetrock dust off the plastic covering the couch, overturned a box, lit some candles, found a classical music station on the Bose, and decided to reclaim our vision.

“That arch looks great.”

“So do the new ceilings. The wood flooring will be in next week.”

“It’s fifty degrees here; they’re having a blizzard in Vermont.”

“I peeked under the pool cover today. The water’s still blue.”                     

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