Not What We Were

March 26, 2020

When I pulled it down from the rafters, it was pretty pathetic-looking, with splotches of paint on the stiles, and covered with a stubborn layer of dirt. One of the spindles in the back was broken and missing; it’s a wonder it hadn’t been tossed on the burn pile years ago. A trip to the bathtub and shower and a bit of vigorous elbow grease with a Scotchbrite pad left a dirty mess in the tub for me to scrub down, but the chair was clean. The paint splotches hadn’t disappeared, though.

It took a thorough scrubbing with some paint stripper to remove the paint, and a rub-down with some red oak stain to even out the finish. Today, I applied the second coat of varnish, fabricated, stained, and varnished the missing spindle, and drilled out the holes where it needs to go. I counted out the holes for the caning, set my starter pegs, and am ready to begin the fun part. 

It’s far from finished; that’ll take another week or so, depending on how much time I give it each day. But it’s a far sight better than it was. When I get involved in a project like this, I usually forget to take a ‘before’ photo; it happened again when I started this one. It’s just as well, because this restoration is a bit like the Gospel. God takes us as we are—dirty, broken, ready for the burn pile—and rescues us. He washes us clean, repairs the broken parts, clothes us the the new garments of righteousness in Christ. He’s not done with us yet, but we aren’t what we once were. 

We are too apt to take mental photographs of what we were. We take them out and look at them till we forget that’s not what we are anymore. We easily fail to see how God has washed us clean in the blood of Christ (Revelation 1:5). When all we look at is our past (and even our present) failures, we lose sight of the miracle God has already wrought, and the goal he has for us., I choose to not look back, but instead at the changes that are truly there, and the end result of holiness and Christ-likeness God has in store.