GREEN

I find it fairly funny that Ryan and I looked at so many houses and looked so carefully but somehow didn’t realize how much we hated the master bathroom in the house that we decided to purchase. We chuckle about it now… how did that happen? How did we not notice the nasty small tub and the ugly linoleum flooring, the broken rusted tub faucet, the 1970’s mirror, the horrible faded and chipped 1980’s fake wood cabinet above the toilet, the laminate countertop and worst of all, the 1980’s strip of 9 bulbous lights right above the mirror? How the heck did we not notice that? I suppose when we looked at the house as a whole, its imperfections faded to the background. And that isn’t such a bad thing, its just surprising to have moved in and then realize how much we hate something we use daily. Our hatred is so strong, we have decided to remodel it.

At first we were just going to do a few simple updates. I bought and installed new brushed nickel towel bars and toilet roll holder. I bought a new light fixture and went to put it up but the wall had not been painted behind the old fixture and there was no extra paint… so we had to wait. We were going to take the ugly above toilet cabinet down but they hadn’t painted behind that either – or the mirror. Turns out the cabinet and mirror were a custom size so there was no way to replace them without painting the entire room. So… since we were going to paint the whole room – why not do a more in-depth remodel. We’ve run into a few more snags…

After a long search for a countertop to fit our strangely sized cabinet, we ordered one we thought would be okay. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted but it was a small upgrade. We were excited to receive it via UPS but I thought it was strange the way the UPS drive left it and ran off as fast as he could. We opened the box and found our marble counter smashed into a million pieces inside the box. Ugh. We took a piece of it out and decided we didn’t really like it anyway so… return! We found one we like much better and it will be ready for pick up the first week of January.

We ordered new tile for the floor – its called “cliks”. It’s a floating tile that can be installed right overtop of your current floor. It seems like a good quality but easier solution to doing regular tile. It took a lot of work to figure out how to get the tiles to fit together right but I persevered and figured it out. We tested the water seal and it seems like its gonna be just fine. The one trick with this tile, is you have to start at a straight corner which we figured wouldn’t be a problem. Hmmmm… not so fast. Our bathroom doesn’t have a straight wall to start from. That’s right, the corners aren’t square, the walls aren’t straight… its very uneven! Not sure what we are going do with that yet but we’ll figure something out. The easy tile isn’t gonna be so easy after all.

We decided to keep our tub but replace the fixtures with new more modern brushed nickel ones. But, we accidentally cracked the water pipe in the wall behind the shower when trying to remove the faucet cover. It was corroded and we used a bit too much muscle. It was a Saturday… so no plumbers available until Monday. We had to turn the water off in our house for the weekend and go stay with the in-laws for a few days. We had to cut out a big hole in the wall of the guest room so the plumber could access the pipes AND the ceiling in the living room now has a nice water stain. Oh boy.

A few hundred dollars later, the plumbing was fixed and the new shower fixtures were installed, mind you we still have the drywall in the guest room to replace and the living room ceiling to repair. But the finished work looked so pretty and the shower head we picked was a nice big rain shower with a few different settings. I couldn’t wait to try this thing out, after all the old one was weak! I was less than impressed with my shower experience though. It seemed this shower head was in need of some Viagra. The water came out strong, but then just drop to the shower floor… no power at all. It was actually worse than the one before. I was very disappointed. Worse, when Ryan asked me how I liked it, I felt bad telling him I didn’t think it was very good.

That night, my father-in-law came over to help Ryan do a few things and we showed him the disappointing shower. He tinkered with it awhile to see if there was something wrong or if there was something could be adjusted. He said we might need to go back to a small shower head but he kept fiddling with it. A few minutes later, he came out of our bathroom and said, “I fixed it!” I went to check it out and saw that he had fixed it. The water was shooting out with power now, the way it should have been. I asked him what he did and he handed me a piece of plastic the size of a penny with a small hole in the center of it. He proceeded to tell me that he had removed this piece of plastic from the showerhead. It had been purposely placed in the showerhead by the manufacturer to reduce the water flow.  This piece of plastic made it possible for the company to call this a “green” showerhead, and we know how everything has to be "green" these days!

Standing in my the bathroom I looked at little tiny “green” hole in the plastic and then compared it to the size of the showerhead. I imagined all that water having to be squeezed through that little opening and it made me laugh. No wonder the water was limping out! I turned and noticed the plaque on my wall. It says:

In my life I always try really hard to understand why things happen, why I feel the way I feel, what could I do differently, how can I make sense of this, that or the other… I am an analyzer.  I realized as I stood there that my analysis of things is making me a “green” follower of Jesus. The more I try to make sense of things, understand the world, myself or my feelings or even force myself to understand scripture… the more limp my faith becomes.  I mean there’s God with all His power, might, knowledge, and control and I step in and try to understand it all. My understanding is just like that piece of plastic… it means well but in the end, it reduces the flow of God’s power into my life.  I'm not trusting the Lord when I decide I must have the answer to everything.  I'm not trusting God when I try to control the flow of life and people. And faith is all about not knowing, not having control, not understanding but still believing no matter what.   I’d be so much better off to do what scripture says and just stop leaning on my own understanding!

I’ve felt a little down since yesterday and I have to honest and say I have no idea why I feel down. There doesn’t seem to be a reason for it. As I was walking home from taking Brett to school this morning I was trying to analyze my emotions so I could fix them… and then I remembered that little piece of plastic. I said to myself, “Wendy, stop being green – let God’s power flow with all its might!” I decided to just let God handle it…to trust Him…to just go with the flow and see what happens.

As for the rest of our bathroom renovation… I'm sure we will run into many other snags.  Stuff will get broken, we will change our minds, hauling out the old junk will require heavy lifting... but I’m glad we decided to do more than just a few cosmetic fixes. Surface work has never worked very well for me… the good stuff in my life has always required major renovation.... mind, body and spirit.

Ah-Choo

Years ago, before I got sober, I used to think I was a pretty darn good Christian. I was nice to people, I had never done anything horrible, and I wasn’t walking around badmouthing God. I felt pretty good about myself and my standing with the Big Guy. It wasn’t until I started to actually try to understand what Christianity really was that I realized perhaps the perception I had of myself, was a little off. Sobriety led me to a real relationship with God. I remember as if it were yesterday, the day we went over the Ten Commandments in the Exploring the Bible class I took. Specifically, I remember thinking “Oh crap” with each commandment I read… and my “Oh crap” got louder and longer as I went from one to ten. That was when I realized… I wasn’t a darn good Christian at all. In fact, I had been a pretty crappy Christian most my life. My heart began pounding in my chest and my palms got sweaty… I was scared… and I think I actually said “I’m screwed!” out loud. The fear that was sparked in me actually proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had a lot to learn about our loving God and this Christianity stuff.

I could get into all the inner workings of my last statement, but that would be a very long article for me to write and for you to read, so I’m just going to focus on one of the commandments right now…

Exodus 20:7 (NIV) reads like this: "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” The most common way I have heard it is, "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain."

For years I had no idea what this meant and I was embarrassed to admit to anyone that I didn’t understand. I thought it was just something everyone understood and I was stupid for not getting it. Finally, I asked my husband to spell it out for me and he was able to get me to actually understand. Here is how he explained it to me. He asked me how I would feel if everyone started to say “Oh Wendy” every time they stubbed their toe or had something bad happen to them. I thought about it for awhile and the light bulb came on… that would suck to have my name associated with bad stuff. I would really dislike that and I’m not even someone who has done something incredible, like create the world and everything in it. It was then that I began to make a conscious effort to stop using God’s name without purpose, good or bad. The way I look at it now is, if I am not actually talking to God, praising Him and having a direct purpose in the use of His name… I am using it in vain. But it’s more complicated than that… society has created some tricks to try and get around it… “Oh my gosh” “Gosh darnit” and such… and in my opinion, purposely mispronouncing it is not a loophole. There are people who argue for and against this… but I’m just saying, for me… I feel like the original intent behind the habit (and I believe whole heartedly it is just a bad habit) is violating the commandment. Trust me, I’m guilty!!!! Now days when I stub my toe really hard on something the word, “God” just flies out of my mouth without thought… then I will intentionally follow it up with “bless America” then say a quick prayer for America to try and put myself on the up and up with God. Usually though, I quickly apologize to God for the infraction. I don’t beat myself up for it, but I have gotten a lot better about it in the past years. I am proud to say that it actually shocks me in public or in movies when I hear the Lord’s name used in vain, especially “GD”. I am glad I am not numb to that anymore. I am glad to be more sensitive and aware in that way. Speaking of awareness, I realized there was one place in my life I was not applying my new rules… the world of text speak. Since this realization, “OMG” has been permanently deleted from my internet shorthand. (BTW, does NE1 know what OMIK means??? JK WCA)

Lately my little brain prompted me to wonder, is saying “God Bless you” to a sneezer if you really don’t mean it a way of using the Lord’s name in vain???? I mean, if it’s just a gut reaction rather than a truly felt and meant response, is it just as bad as saying “”GD”? Some of you probably think I’m kidding, that my question is a joke but it’s not. I felt kind of silly wondering about it, but I finally asked a pastor friend of mine what he thought. While perhaps it was a silly thing to seriously ponder, I am so glad God set the question in my heart because what resulted from my question was a completely new understanding of what the Second Commandment is referring to.

Joe (my pastor friend), referred me to this article: http://www.achievebalance.com/spirit/cnc/third.htm You may not have time or want to read it so I’ll just give you my perception of what it says. Basically, we make a conscious decision to take on the Lord’s name as our family name when we make the decision to be a Christian (much like a wife decides to take the name of her husband upon marriage). When we take on His name as ours, we have a responsibility to make appropriate changes to our lives… to try our best to live like a follower of Christ (much like the change in life that occurs in marriage… no more dating, no more living alone – you are joined as one and you make decisions together). If we take on the family name of God but we do not make the appropriate changes that decision dictates, then we are essentially… taking His name in vain... taking on His name in vain.

So, taking the Lord’s name in vain can be as elementary as a slip of the tongue AND as serious as an inconsistent lifestyle. Wow… this really spoke to me. At the end of the article, the writer reminded me that we are all sinners and it is impossible to live a life that never takes the Lord’s name in vain so… just like with all the other commandments… it’s important for me to remember God’s grace and love is the only way I can ever deserve to carry His name. I must continue to consciously search for Him. I must attempt to live in intentional discipleship and do my best as a woman who has taken on the family name of God. This Commandment is a lot bigger than controlling the words that flow from my mouth.