Chapter 41- The Parable of the Coffee Table

Oh, hello there old friend. It's been a while hasn't it? There have been many things that have kept me away not the least among them my old pals fear and insecurity whom always tend to slum around together and loiter on the same curb of my soul. It's a difficult thing to take a risk. Its an even more difficult thing to make it known and be seen in your trials and obstacles (which is what I choose to call my failures). My story has taken many unexpected twists and I have not known how to write about them. Truth be told I still do not know how to write about them. I lost the thread along the way and started even to doubt that it was God's hand that was writing it. But God is a God of mercy and restoration and I have known healing and refreshing by His hand. He has reached through the fog and assured me that He hears me, that He knows me and that His pen is still scribbling away in His Book of Life of which I am an integral character. I will do my best to record what I have learned in the past few years of my journey while also sharing what it is I am learning at present. It seems I could speak at length and yet I do not even know where to begin. So let me begin with a story about a coffee table.

I love when God speaks to you through unexpected means. Who knew restoring an old coffee table would imprint such a poignant lesson on my heart? A couple months ago I bought something off the hit and miss treasure trove that is craigslist. I have sort of a love/hate relationship with ole craig, but perhaps more on that later. This particular occasion was a good experience. The kind Russian gentleman opened his storage unit and not only did I get a great deal on the item I was looking for but he offered anything else in the unit that may have caught my eye. The first was a globe which I got for a good friend of mine who enjoys traveling the world and the second was a well used coffee table made of sturdy oak. I think it may have been a dining room table converted to a coffee table but nevertheless it was decent looking and I knew we were in need of a coffee table and the guy offered it for $20. Can't beat that. I also thought it would be a great side project for me as I have recently found myself with a lot of free time on my hands (again, more on that later). So we grabbed it and hauled it to my car. It was pretty massive and along the way the side panels kind of tore off and proceeded to fall on my shin and then into my car where it left a nice dent. The thing definitely needed an overhaul.

I began work shortly after and toward the middle of the project it started to dawn on me how much I had in common with this table.  I started to feel as if God was in much the same way restoring me. God saw me and He recognized the value in me. In much the same way I did, He said "That has value! I can see the potential  in him. I have a vision for him and have the perfect place to put him. However, he's not ready to go there yet. He needs a little work first."

The first thing that had to go was the old stain and finish. It was beat up, scuffed, had coffee stains on it. And it wasn't as if I could just paint some new stain over the old. Nope, it would take work to strip the old finish off. I started to think about that stain. This table was a finished product. It had a use and I bet it performed that use well. It probably looked more than decent in its prime. This resonated with me and how I relate to myself, my identity. For years I have associated myself in a particular way. Who I was was defined by my habits, my goals, my passions. My experience developed a particular patina if you will for those familiar with woodwork. It was in essence my stain. A stain had seeped deep into the cracks of  by being. Something that just was. This was just who I was. For better or for worse, this is what I had become. Which may or may not have been a bad thing, but I kept getting the distinct impression that it wasn't all there was about me. However, God makes all things new and its never too late to let Him transform you. But first he must remove the old stain.

I must mention that this whole process was way more involved than I thought it was going to be. I thought, "Sure, I'll just sand it down and put some more stain on it and we're good to go." Then I started looking up the DIYs online and saw it was gonna take a little more work than that. So I grabbed a power sander and sanded off the original finish and stain to get down to the raw, natural wood. Spiritually I could relate as I have been through my own "sanding" and left feeling raw. when God wants to work something out in your life it tends not to be comfortable (Heb 12:11). Within the past couple of years I have had my heart and my dreams shattered. It has not been a fun process. I felt as if things I prayed for and hoped in for a long time were swept away from me. That part of myself or even the whole of myself was being dismantled, deconstructed, stripped down to the raw.

However, that was just the beginning of it. I discovered that you don't just sand something once and then its ready for a new stain. You must sand it again with a finer grain of sand paper so that you smooth out the rough edges. After that, you run your hand over it and say "Yeah ,now that's smooth." But, no, you don't really know what smooth is yet. You go over it again with even finer sand paper. Aren't we guilty of that in our lives? We think "Man, that was rough. But I've endured and persevered and now I'm ready to move forward." And sure enough, something else comes along that refines us even further. And then something else and something else until we're left screaming at God "When will this stop?!" One big lesson that I've learned is that God is not concerned with our comfort. He is concerned with our character. But He does love us and he will do what it takes to really get us smooth and ready for what comes next.

And this is where the stain comes in. Now a good stain will bring to life the natural grains of the wood. It highlights them. Accentuates the natural beauty. Think about that. It augments the glory that is already there. God is an artist and he is always working to make beautiful the things he has created. The piece is just about to be placed where I had envisioned it but first it needs the finish applied which will protect it. We are His "masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works" Eph 2:10. You better believe that He is going to to take his time to fine tune you. Because we will never be done until the last brush stroke, the final chisel when we are with Him in paradise and He embraces us, His favorite creations and says "You have trusted me to build you into the creation I have intended and fulfilled the purpose that I had for you. Well done, good and faithful servant."

The table looks much different than it did before, and in my opinion much better. And that gives me hope because I choose to believe that God is making me into something new that is way better than what I had in mind for myself. To God be the glory