scraped clean for glory: whispers of truth in before-and-afters

Often when I’m supposed to be doing something more pressing, more legitimate (like work on my second novel!)–I go nutso and do a whole bunch of crazy home decorating projects all at once.

I figure it’s kinda like writing. Ideas lurk around my brain, tugging at me with a color or a turn of a lamp, or of the possibility of a balanced vignette in an otherwise empty, lonely corner, until I simply must do something about it.

This round of decorating was inspired by a jaunt my husband and I took to a local architectural salvage yard. Except for a book store, there may be no greater place on earth to wander and imagine those who used the dilapidated items generations before me . . . to consider the hearts of the folks who passed through the old door we bought or through the threshold topped by the piece of decorative trim we claimed as our own.

Stuff.

Just stuff. I know this.

But stuff made new.

Adopted.

Cleaned up.

Renovated.

Beautiful.

Again.

Apply whatever metaphor you see fit to these humble projects. May they inspire you to create. May they speak to your soul about the hope and real stuff redemption is made of.

Hearts scraped clean.

Rehung.

On display.

For His glory.

Project #1: The Laundry Room

***BEFORE***

Dark and dim, the little room had potential with a pretty window overlooking the garden. But light couldn’t get through.

Enter salvage yard item #1: a beautifully trimmed door with a ginormous window. And wow, if it didn’t just happen to have the same dimensions as the builder’s door that was already there!

***AFTER***

***love!***

Project #2: The Master Closet

***BEFORE***

This closet doesn’t have a door on it because of its precarious position between the commode room and sinks. How annoying, right? I mean, who wants to look at this mess all the time? (Never mind that I’m a horrible housekeeper.)

Enter salvage piece #2: A beautifully worn, carved piece of trim.

***AFTER***

I love how the circle patterns repeat with the decor I already had, including the hydrangea (my wedding flower) plate my maid-of-honor found for me for our wedding years ago. I can’t get enough hydrangeas!

Project #3: A wreath

There’s no before-and-after for this project, because it was just a new one inspired by Pinterest–what else? I’m smitten with anything burlap these days, and when I found this roll of teal burlap ribbon at Hobby Lobby, I swooned. (Or was it the instrumental praise music they play in the background there? I may never know . . . )

Anyway, I kinda like how it turned out. And I love the look of teal on dark red!

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What about you?

What sorts of spring fever projects have you been doing at your house? Tell us in the comments and leave a link.

Do you find that art inspires art in your life?

discovered

Do you see it?

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There, in the great, marbled, dusty hunk of rock.

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Can you see it?

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Look again.

I tell you, it’s there.

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I see you shaking your head.

Maybe you don’t have the eye for it.

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He did.

My Grandpa Joe.

Nearly 96, he’d be, if he hadn’t left the earth one year ago today.

For a large part of a century, he hounded out designs.

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Beauty.

The essential curve of a prehistoric layer of sediment which, if cut and carved and polished just so, would turn into a treasure.

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A portrait.

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A scene.

Mountains with a river, running wild and rushing, through the middle of a lush and fertile valley.

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And so I ask again, do you see it?

What The Maker sees . . .

. . . in YOU?

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No mishmash of petrified scree.

No haphazard flecks of sediment sealed by heat and pressure and pain.

Just dreams, wild with hope and waiting to take flight, like wild geese over land and lakes, wings hugging and trusting the invisible wind.

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So let Him shape you.

Let Him cut away the raw and unruly edges.

Let Him hone in on the beauty, the gift, the treasure that you are.

Waiting.

To be discovered.

By The Craftsman.

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This blog post is dedicated to my grandpa, Joseph Kossack, who passed on this day, February 13, 2012. He carved all the stones in these photographs, and tens of hundreds more. Cabochons. Faceted gems. You name it. In addition to being a fisherman, he was a rock hound, as they’re called. And most of the stone in these photos are chalcedony, also known as “crazy lace.” If you know your rocks, you’ll also notice turquoise and cat’s eye in the bunch.

Grandpa Joe passed one day shy of Valentine’s Day last year.

We like to think he picked this day so he could make it to Heaven in time to spend the 14th with my grandma.

Mary Jane.

Soulmates since grade school.

She’s long been saving a seat for him.

And I’m sure she had a note ready.

Tucked between folds of a waxy, transparent envelope.

Still warm from the press of her lips upon its seal.

Beauty for ashes.

Amen.

Shouting hurrah at the harvest

Trudging home from work one day, I realized it’d been a long while since I’d laughed.

(((snort))) on occasion, yes.

But full-out belly laugh, well, I strained to remember what it felt like. Discouragements at work and from people and situations out of our control weighed heavily on my shoulders for weeks in a row. And on top of it, I felt raw and triggered from the hard work of abuse recovery.

I longed to laugh.

Other folks seemed to laugh so easily. My children laughed. (I praised God for that.) Yet, I longed to laugh along with them.

Eventually, I pulled out the one thing that always centers me . . . always reminds me of how far God has brought us and how much He has blessed us . . . always reminds me of the laughter floating like notes along the long measures of our lives:

I pulled out my scrapbooks.

For several days, I cut and pasted, mounted and arranged months and months of photos stuck in my computer, begging to be placed on a page and celebrated. As the photos fell into an organized, rainbow of rhythms and crescendos, I began, once again, to laugh.

I rounded the corners of a photo of three boys hanging like monkeys on the swing set.

(((giggle)))

I mounted a photo of a son cradling his brand new puppy in his arms.

(((smile)))

I cropped a photo of another son, arms raised in glee as an ocean wave crashes and splashes all around him.

(((giggle, a bit more this time)))

I pulled out years and years of completed albums, and my boys sat around me, looking at their once-pudgy arms, diaper-clad booties, and faces covered in birthday cake.

(((belly laughing at last)))

I enlarged a photo of green, velvet moss pushing past the silver white snow all around it, alongside the path my family trekked along one fine spring day.

(((selah)))

Brokenness, in all its forms, weighs us down. Revisiting the good days gives evidence of a God who walks beside our slumped and lumbering frames; a God who delivers His people, even today, and who returns despairing exiles to a place where they can stand tall and laugh once again.

As the Psalmist writes in 126 (The Message version):

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion’s exiles.
We laughed, we sang,
we couldn’t believe our good fortune.
We were the talk of the nations—
“God was wonderful to them!”
God was wonderful to us;
we are one happy people.

And now, God, do it again—
bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

Do it again, God.

Bring us home laughing.

Though some of us have spent time planting in despair, lead us to the place where we can laugh and shout hurrah at a glorious harvest.

Part the clouds of life so we can hear the song of Your goodness once again . . .

. . . and laugh . . .

. . . and laugh . . .

. . . and laugh.

Question for you: where do you find laughter when it eludes you? How do you rejoice in the ways God has delivered you, to date? And if you’re feeling, well, rather “undelivered” at the moment, how do you go about seeking Him in the midst of your brokenness?

*This blog was submitted to the One Word at a Time blog carnival on laughter, as well as Tuesday’s Unwrapped–two fabulous, inspiring, gracious sites to visit. I highly suggest stopping by them both if you have the chance.