We were very blessed that God allowed us the opportunity to purchase a house about 2 years ago.  This is actually the third house we have been blessed to purchase.  Each has needed different degrees of work done to it.  The third, and current, house we purchased was in pretty good shape, a pervious owner had done a few things to it, but it needed more work.  It is not a big, fancy house; however, we are so grateful because God blessed us with the perfect house to meet the needs of our family.  So for 2 years now we have been working on this house bit by bit.

There were some major things we tackled before we could move in.  The whole inside needed to be painted and we had to redo both bathrooms, completely.  Including new sheetrock, retiling the showers, new toilets, refinishing the cabinets, new counters and sinks, new mirrors, all new fixtures, and new doors. Whew!!  But, this did not take care of everything that needed to be fixed.  All the doors in the house needed to be replaced and we haven’t even gotten to the outside of the house which also needs some serious attention.

Now, the problem with all this work is there was not enough money to pay someone to do it all.  This meant, we either do it ourselves or it doesn’t get done.  Well, not doing the renovations was definitely not an option; so, it was up to us.  Let me also take a minute to say that we are not in the business of redoing houses; but, we are somewhat handy.  As I mentioned, one of the things that needed to be done was paint the entire inside of the house, which includes the door frames.  At the beginning of our renovations, we spent time researching paint and deciding on which would be the best kind to get for great results that would work the best with the time we had.  We decided to get the more expensive kind that also has primer built right in it.  This way we could get good coverage and have to paint less which would save time since we were on a deadline.  Well, can you guess how this worked out for us?  Terribly!  The paint, which also included primer, was not covering well at all.  We ended up having to put about 3 coats of paint on everything!!  Can you believe it – 3 coats!  Not only did we have to paint everything a million times (only a slight exaggeration), we had to keep going back to buy more and more paint!  Then we came to the door frames; this happened to pose it’s own set of problems.

The door frames in the house came in 2 different forms.  In one part of the house they were painted and in the other part of the house they were stained wood.  We began working with the painted frames by sanding them in order to prep them to paint.  Well, do you think it would be that simple?  That is normally all you should have to do; but not for us.  The old paint was actually chipping and peeling off.  Well, you can’t paint over it like that so we began to scrape the paint.  We have spent hours scraping and scraping and scraping some more.  (We are still not even finished with this part.)  In an effort to try and actually make some progress we decided to move on to the stained frames; after all, there was no paint to deal with on them.  In preparation for painting these frames, we sanded the frames so the paint would adhere to the wood.  As we began painting these, we saw that the paint was NOT sticking.  It was peeling off despite having sanded first.  So, to fix this problem we would have to remove the multiple coats of new paint, remember we can’t just use one coat, paint the wood with Kilz and then repaint.  We just recently have been working on this.  Even though we put Kilz on the wood first we still had to put on an additional 2 coats of paint.  AHHHH!!  See, I am not kidding when I say that we have had to paint everything a million times.  We have yet to tackle the painted door frames.  At this point we are researching what the best choice will be to remove the old paint.  Plus, we still have to paint the new doors; we’ll see how this works.  I am thinking positive – smooth sailing ahead.

This seems to be how everything works for me.  A simple job, turned complicated and taking 10 times longer than it should.  You could all probably tell me a story like this from your life.  In the midst of situations like this it is just so easy to get discouraged and focus on the negative.  It is so easy to feel sorry for yourself and want to throw a pity party.  It is so easy to want to give up.  It is so easy to lose sight of God and what He is doing.  We get frustrated and set the tone to focus on the negative.  After a lifetime of trials on my battlefield; I do try and find the positive; I am glad I have door frames to paint – I could be homeless.  But, I am sorry to say that there have been times in my life, I have asked why everything has to be so hard, complicated, and take so long.  I sometimes even find myself envying those people that everything is so easy for.  I mean who else is going to have so many problems with paint, really?  You see, we get so focused on what is going wrong and the mounting irritations and frustrations that we miss seeing the big picture.  What is God doing in this situation?

God recently reminded me that I would miss so much if everything came easy.  If everything was easy I would miss the opportunity to be thankful.  I would miss the opportunity to learn to persevere.  I would miss the opportunity to problem solve and try things different ways.  I would miss the thrill of FINALLY completing the job, which happens to be so much sweeter.  I wouldn’t be able to appreciate what it’s like when something actually goes right.  Through these trials on life’s battleground, God is using these situations to brew and refine us.  He is creating something more substantial in us with more depth and layers.  He is using them for His good.  I challenge you, and myself, to view things differently when things are not working as we think they should – because maybe they actually are.  Instead of focusing on the negative and missing the bigger more important picture, focus on what you might be missing if things went smoothly.  Focus on what God is brewing in you; He is refining you into a beautiful masterpiece.  Focus on giving thanks in everything, even frustrating situations, because you know that God is at work in your life and He is there with you?  He never leaves you!

^“13 For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”  Isaiah 41:13 KJV

Would you rather miss the frustration of things going wrong or miss seeing God moving in your life?

Let’s Brew!