do overs

This summer I  had some ceilings repaired in preparation because- of course I was going to get the roof fixed.  But the summer went, and the fall..and even if the worker had called with availability….the funds in place got used for broken dishwashers, new furnace, tree removal, snow tires……etc.

 

Last week, the beautiful job Bryn and crew did in making the main floor bedroom possible for Loren, it melted with our January spring.  Bubbled paint all along the outside wall and a nice little drip onto my dresser from that ceiling.  Ali’s room’s ceiling is not dripping- but it is lower than it was last month.  My dining room ceiling doesn’t look like it was dripping- but the newspaper on the table was all wet- and yes- there is a nice seam evident.  Hard work by a nephew prematurely done in.

 

When my room started dripping I was actually pretty “c’est la vie” about it.  Ross and Ali quickly worked on getting the snow shovelled off the back half of the house’ roof and so – even though there is a problem- I thought- the worst of the damage is over.  Now when I realize that the dining room ceiling- o’er top of Loren’s table is also likely to create havoc and need to be repaired.

 

Do- overs. 

 

They can be mightily frustrating.  All that work and effort for what?

 

Do-overs.  They also contain the promise of a new start.  Right now I am just a bit tired of new starts- but I do know they hold potential.  I’ve said and been  told many times over this last year:  Hold all things loosely.

Guess that applies to ceilings, too.

 

This Sunday we had communion at church.  I was thinking about what it means to celebrate a sacrifice given to remit sin. Sin hurts. Harmful actions. Harmful words.  Sin hurts and shuts our eyes. We can no longer see the people behind these - or- we see the person's outline and think they are the error.

 

Often I have thought of this sacrifice as a way that allows me to start afresh.  Today I was thinking that what it allows is for the errors, failures, hurts and sins, to be separated out from the people who do them and have them done to them.  The story that recognizes the great loss, pain, hurt that comes from wrong by sentencing it to death- no glossing over its gravity- that story gives us the hope that we are more than our wrongs.  I am…..and you are…..  We can get back to being people again.

 

Do-overs have hope built into them. 

 

So…if my roof drips into my ceilings, if I don’t remember/am too rushed to lock up the dog and he wrecks stuff, if I get hurt …or I hurt others…..I choose to believe in do-overs.  To separate out the awful from the people.

 

God does it for me.

   

  Love, felicia