The Tapestry

Lately I've been thinking of an illustration I heard once.  It was that our lives are like a tapestry.  But the problem is, we don't get to see it as we live here on earth.  All we see is the back side of it, the knots, tangles, confusion and mess.  But God gets to see the other side.  He knows what He's doing, and how it all works together, and what the beautiful masterpiece will look like in the end.  

Sometimes I can't wait to see what it looks like from God's side.

One more week.......?

So, we're hoping that next week is the final week.

Hoping......

This is the house as of yesterday:

All filled in all the way around!

The back porch is framed and wrapped, just needs doors and windows.  The basement has all the ductwork in, and the plumbing is finished.  It just needs electricity!  (Currently it's lit by a string of lights on a cord, supplied by our builder.)  So once the back porch has the doors and windows (and not plywood screwed over the doorway), I will feel like it is a house again. 

Oh, and we need a gas line to the house.  That's kind of a big one when it comes to the furnace.....

We do have a bunch of finish work to do, but we are doing that ourselves.  No more relying on other people's schedules.  (Just our own pocketbook, which may cause more delays!)

The below is something weird that I wanted to do.  I can't remember where I saw this, it was on a blog somewhere, but I loved it.  They wrote verses all over their framework.  It got covered up with the finish work, but it was a visual of literally building your house on God's Word.  I asked Paul, and he was on board.

This is on the header as you go down the stairs.

I didn't realize how disgusting the cobwebs were until the flash captured them.....

It says:
Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.  And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.  Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

-Deuteronomy 6:4-9

It needed to be written bigger, but I didn't know how much space I'd need.  (It's a chunk of verse!)  But I love the message.  Passing our beliefs on to our children is something Paul and I are committed to.  This verse may eventually be covered up by finish work, but it will be a visual witness to others until then.  We'll probably write some other verses, and maybe even put some on the floor - the foundation of our house! - to be permanently visible.

Okay, so I got distracted from this post by researching flooring options for the back porch.  I'd better call it a night and get to bed!

Quote to Consider:

If He [God] were small enough to be understood, He wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped.

-David Jeremiah
"I Don't Know and That's Okay"
from the September 2014 issue of Turning Points Magazine and Devotional

We Still Like Each Other

I know now why they say that building/renovating your house is a huge stress on your marriage.  It has all the stresses, bundled up into one huge project:  money, major (permanent!) decisions, communication, lack of time together.....
But I'm happy to say that we still like each other.
We've always done well working on projects together (except maybe trying to organize his shop), and I guess this one is just another one to chalk up.
A going-on-ten-weeks-long project.... :)

Home Improvements 2014: A big STEP

It's been over 8 weeks.  Time has flown.  Progress went really well, boom-boom-boom, for the first 5 weeks, and then pretty much came to a standstill for two weeks, waiting for the plumber to lay the drains so they could pour the floor.  That was really, really frustrating.

But they poured the floor last week, and today was a big STEP toward getting finished..... STAIRS! 

The workers told Paul these aren't the final stairs, but they are what they will use to access the basement to finish the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical.  They have been accessing it through a ladder in the window well (identical to the one in the background).  Everything has been coming through that window....  Lumber, beams, pipes, cinder blocks....  

Next week they will start on the back porch.  So close!  And then comes the decisions I will lose sleep on.  Not even kidding.  Putting color on the floors and walls will be the things that will completely STRESS ME OUT.  But right now I'm saying - BRING IT ON!  I would gladly take losing sleep over color swatches and flooring samples, over having my home completely torn up.  I am so ready!