new spaces
She walked up the steps from her garage and glanced down to the chipped paint and deep scratches beneath her feet. It was as if they were crying out for help. In that same moment, a whisper of a thought floated through her mind, flashing an image of fresh paint. Aloud she said, “How did I not notice this before?” The steps were in terrible shape and in need of refreshing. These were the most used steps and got the most wear and tear. They were not the main steps to the front of the house, but to the door inside the garage that not many ever see. A door that would be symbolic of something new.
This was a new season. A couple of months prior, she had taken time off from teaching to heal, both physically and mentally. But what she needed most, was a soul revival. The kind that no physical therapy or positive thinking practice could provide. She was embarking on a season of rearranging and renewing. Painting the steps didn’t really seem to fit her plan and she was worried about the physical aspect. “Can I even do this?” she thought. It seemed like a simple task. They were just steps. But this was the same woman who, just a few months prior, was in chronic physical pain. A woman who struggled to make own her bed and empty her dishwasher. Drying her hair scared her, for fear of feeling physical pain all day. For nearly a year, mundane tasks had become daunting and fear of how she would feel lurked in the corners of her mind daily. But a lot had happened in those months leading up to this moment. The old was passing away and a new chapter was being born. Physical healing had begun and she was feeling hopeful. So she followed the nudge to paint and the next day embarked on the project.
With each brushstroke she felt a sense of peace and a deep knowing that she was meant to do this. It seemed so simple, yet she could sense that buried just beneath the surface was something more, a soul message. And it felt like preparation. It felt like knowing that someone was about to arrive. It felt like making room for something fresh and new to happen. It felt like an invitation. Just three little steps, painted in a slate blue, and the entry to her home felt brand new. As if to say, “Come in, you are welcome here.”
She stepped back, can and brush in hand, and was pleased with her work. That is, until the can of slate blue paint slipped out of her grip and she watched it splatter across the wall and spill out on to the cement. A simple job she thought she finished had turned into a mess. How in the world would she ever clean this up? Dark blue paint glared at her as she stood shocked and frozen in what to do next. The spill on the cement could be scrubbed as clean as it possibly could be. The rug that lived there before, could live there again and cover the partially scrubbed spill marks. But after wiping down the wall, she felt a pang of panic. “What do I do now?” Her eyes darted over to a shelf that held an array of paint cans. She found white paint, took some deep breathes, grabbed a new brush, and covered it all in white, one layer at a time. She laughed somewhere in the process and thought, “I’m not sure why, but I know this was a part of the plan.” She soon realized that what she had felt about the steps, the preparation for something new, revealed itself in that moment. In wasn’t in her accomplishment, it was in the messy moment. In the covering it all moment. The “wiping the slate clean” moment.
Exhausted from what was meant to be a small job, turned messy job, she laughed and cried and thanked God. She realized that in the space she created to make room for something more. Her heart was expanding making room for Jesus to enter. Painting the steps was a mere act, an offering, born from listening, hearing, and acting. But that Jesus was the one that would be coming in to the middle of the mess and wiping the slate clean.
Five years later and she can look back and see the spiritual renovations that have taken place since that day and even prior that moment. The path being cleared, the junk that was moved out of the way, to really understand God on a new level. That He has always been moving the pieces around. That this time God was answering her heart’s prayer. The one of really knowing Him.
. . . . .
While we are busy renovating our physical spaces, God is waiting and ready to help us renovate our interior spaces. Maybe sometimes all we need to do is follow the nudge and in doing so, we incline the ear of our hearts to the whisper that is revealing so much more than what we see on the surface.