Take 2

October 25, 2007


When you start a blog, you should write... not leave it blank. So here's take 2.

I almost (accidentally) painted my home "Key West" purple a few years ago. My neighbor claimed the bright shade would have fit fine in sunny Florida where the tropic breeze calms pastel pallets. Atlanta suburbs required benign exteriors.

The painter arrived while I was driving car pool, the morning after I'd decided to tame the color. He'd been in jail on a traffic violation so I was certain I had another day before paint met house. When I pulled into my driveway, however, the race had begun; the horse had left the starting gate; the train was chugging down the tracks. A a third of my house was purple. While a soft morning light tamed the spectacle, bright afternoon rays set fire to the color. My house lit up like a bright colored Easter egg.

Remembering the embarrassment I felt in high school after getting a new perm--awkward, nerdy, out of place--I hid inside all night. When the neighbors left for work the following morning, I tried again.

By dinner time, my home sported a gray-purple color with regal black trim. The finished product produced a classic charm instead of a tacky tone. My neighbor's husband recovered from near cardiac arrest - or so I've been told - and I nicknamed myself, "Susan of the Purple House."

For right beneath the surface view is a mistake of catastrophic proportions. And right beneath a layer of grace is a sinful soul in need of a Saviour.

My oldest son shares my creative bent. He sings, plays the piano, forgets details when stressed, and accidentally painted his new desk purple a month ago.

"How did you paint the entire desk purple, when we painstakingly chose brown?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders in true teenager fashion and replied "I used the only can of paint I saw."

So after two coats of light beige and another to allow a special crackle finish, the top brown coat was instead, purple. If we hadn't taken months to paint my grandmother's desk from the 1940's, I might not have been so befuddled. But it had taken months to get to the fourth coat, and just when the project should have reached completion, I found myself staring at a purple desk - the same purple as the exterior of my home. Nathan had grabbed the can of paint purchased to cover new pieces of siding. The quart of brown rested in a Sherwin William's bag close by.

Sammy, my younger, analytical thinker defended his brother,"Mom, I wouldn't make that kind of mistake. But I've lived with you two long enough to know this makes sense."

In response, "Susan of the Purple House" simply dubbed her oldest child, "Nathan of the Purple Desk." And a few coats of paint later, a brown desk with beige crackles appeared and now sits in his room.

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor. 5:17)

I'd like to always get it right the first time. But my house, and now my son's desk, remind me of grace - a grace sufficient for my every need; a grace that transformed this ragamuffin into a Child of God; a grace that covers a multitude of sin.

"Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be..." (Samuel Willoughby Duffield)

July 10, 2007

It's early Tuesday morning or late Monday night. But I'm trying something new - a blog spot. As I ponder color options and struggle to upload a photo, ants roam about my desk. They come on occasion, but I haven't seen them in a while. They're out in force tonight, though. Recent rains must have driven them indoors. Don't know that I've ever seen so many.

I feel far too important to have critters distracting my flow, but they don't scare easy. I could squish them with little effort, but I've been told an odor released upon impact only attracts more. Perhaps I've been fooled by an old wives tale. Still, I watch them roam.

They bother me.

They scurry about with short antennas, in a hurry to no where. If they could search the pages of my calendar, open to the current month, they're certain to know we must make it to the allergist by Thursday morning. But they can't that far. A pen acts as the great barrier. Maneuvering around it's long body keeps them from wandering the wide open reminder of my current plans.

I feel like God.

I, The Master, with fingers hot on the keys, can look down on the feeble ants, crawling with little purpose; little understanding of the importance of their surroundings. A blog is being birthed! A writer is at her perch! A flow of thought is entering the causeways. And with a mere brush of her finger, this soulful creator (in need of rest) could move the obstacle pen from their path, as if dividing the Red Sea.

Truth is, I'm also an ant. And He is the Almighty God. And He does have a master plan. And as I hurry about, out of touch with the greater purpose of things, He looks down, with love, and patience, and kindness of soul.

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers." (Isaiah 40: 21-22 NIV)