We are about to do a little remodeling at our house. In talking to the contractor (who is also a friend) about my hopes and dreams for the spaces where we live, I talked about wanting to make this a safe, efficient and beautiful place to spend the rest of our lives.
Although it is something that I hope will carry us through the remainder of our many years here, I am still in a hurry to get it done. Some of the things I want to do, I started planning when we bought the house over 21 years ago. We have done some upgrades over those years, but there are several things I consider important that I have waited patiently for 21 years to see happen.
While talking to our builder, I asked him when he could begin and I got a rather vague answer. Then when I asked how long the project would take once he got started, he said 4 months.
“FOUR MONTHS!” I shouted. “On TV they build whole houses in an hour!!”
I, of course, was joking. So was he as it turns out.
When I went to order the flooring last week, to begin phase one of the project, the salesman asked me when I wanted them to do the front part of the house and I said “tomorrow’. I could hear the owners of the company laugh from their offices behind us.
I am an impatient person and I am ready to start whatever my latest idea is immediately. Today, in a sermon I was forced to watch on my IPad due to a set of circumstances that had me on edge, our minister talked about the in between times that so often get left out of the Bible stories. What is skipped over, or addressed in one verse, or a couple of sentences often encompasses long periods of time. He mentioned times of waiting that were 40 days, 3 years, 25 years, 40 years and more. Times when people seem to go off by themselves to pray, to study, to hang in their mom’s basement doing who knows what, until they seem to get a call from God or at least they get their act together enough to get out and get back after it.
As a friend of mine left my house Friday, she talked about time and how the last year had seemed so long. Then she said that time seemed to be flying now. I agreed but then backed up a bit. The past year seemed long in the midst of it, but as usually happens, looking back at what I was doing right before the world shut down a year ago, parts of it seem like yesterday.
In the big scheme of things, 13-14 months doesn’t seem so long when you compare it to some of the waiting that happens in those Bible stories. Although I am an impatient person I do recognize that one year is way less than 40!
What always concerns me isn’t how fast or slow time goes, but what I do with that time. It is hard sometimes to not be doing what we see as the big things, but instead feel forced to do what we see as nothing. We want to be out and doing something of consequence, when sometimes what we need is some time to collect our thoughts, to daydream, to pray, to imagine.
In this busy world, I know that I feel guilty every day that I don’t accomplish something I consider “important.” To be honest I don’t do much that is really important, but I can convince myself that I did something of worth on lots of days. When I really stop and think about it, which I try not to do too much, I know that I make very little difference. My only hope is that my little bit, put with someone else’s little bit, matters.
During this past year I had time to realized what I truly missed doing and what I was doing before that I was relieved to not have to do for a year. I thought of things that I wasn’t doing before that I think I want to start to do as things begin to slide back into a new normal. I have become aware of what I was wasting time on before and what I need to push myself to do even though fear has stopped me in the past.
Looking back on the past year, I realize that I took some chances and tried doing some things that I would not have done had life just continued on. I was able to look past the “busy work” we all get caught up in, that the pandemic stopped long enough to let me see what really mattered and what was just stuff I was doing to “look” busy.
Our minister mentioned that God often does the work on us in the “in between times.” Even when we don’t think anything is happening in our life, we don’t see or feel the growth, the changes, He is working on us. Those years that are skipped in the Bible when all you see is what was going on before, and then what happens after the waiting time, the empty time, the slow time, it is important too.
It is kind of like when we see a house transformed in an hour on TV. We don’t see the months of planning, the delays, the decisions made, the changes added along the way. We don’t see day after day of bad weather or the days when no work gets done at all because the crew is on another job or there is no product to continue work with. We see a small hint of what goes on during the process in that one hour version.
I have had an extraordinary life, with stories I could go on and on about. But there have been long stretches of time when I was not sure what I was doing or where I was going. There were moments that I have had enough and cried out for something, ANYTHING to happen to give me some direction.
When I was in the middle of those times, I could not believe God was making me wait so long. I could not understand what I had done wrong to be out on hold like that. When I look back at those times, I realize that I was growing, learning, discovering the things I needed to meet the moment when it did finally occur.
While in the midst of those times, I felt like the wait would never end, when I look back on them now, I realize they weren’t so long after all. The whole thing, my whole life has gone by so fast. And the moments I had to slow down and reflect were God sent.
I am ready for the remodel. I have packed up books and knick-knacks, ordered a few new things as I see them on sale and as always I have gotten ahead of myself with impatience. Thinking it could be the end of the summer before I can enjoy rehanging pictures, putting out my new purchases and relaxing in the new space makes me tense and yearning for time to move faster. I know from experience that I will be looking back in the fall and thinking that time has just flown by.
We remodeled my kitchen in this house after 7 years of suffering with the worst designed kitchen I had ever seen. It not only made cooking tedious, it was dangerous. It made preparing meals, something I really love to do, something I dreaded. For seven years, I planned and dreamed, mostly choosing to do the opposite of what I had! Then it was a frustrating and expensive process due to a terrible contractor.
Once it was completed, the problems I had endured disappeared ( well, kind of- I do hold grudges!) I began to love cooking again, and I was so happy to finally have what I had dreamed, planned and waited 7 years for!
When walking through the house showing our current contractor what all I wanted him to change, we got to the kitchen. I mentioned resurfacing the countertops, changing out a window I had not changed in the initial remodel, and adding a small island.
Later on, I was thinking about my “new” kitchen and how it almost seemed sinful to want to do anything to it when I had just remodeled it. And then it hit me- that was 14 years ago! My new kitchen isn’t new at all! Through all I went through remodeling that kitchen with a terrible contractor at the same time I took on a huge, new responsibility at the church all of those many years ago, the remodel seems like it all happened a short time ago. Although it seemed a nightmare at the time, it all happened so fast when I think back.
Time is tricky. Sometimes it seems that the waiting, the in between times will never end. Then they do and it seems they weren’t so long after all. Maybe not long enough! What makes the difference is realizing that change is inevitable, that what seems like it will last forever never does. What seems like it is taking too long is taking just the right amount of time, as long as you lean into the time and take it for what it is.
Instead of trying to hurry things up and get on with things when you are stuck, maybe taking a breath, waiting a minute to learn what you can, dream what you can and wait is the best plan. For someone like me who wants it all done yesterday, I am learning to sometimes just be still, settling into the in between time for a bit. I see now that it is some of the most worthwhile time I can spend.
