I spent about two weeks of focused energy on the camper restoration this summer, then in early August, we took it over to a paint and body shop where it remains today. Originally, I thought I’d be able to paint it myself (I mean, I’m doing the entire restoration without knowing what I’m doing, so why not throw in a paint job?!), then Bart said that he wanted the job of painting it as his contribution to the project. As the “deadline” approached, though, he pointed out the benefits of utilizing a paint shop for this job given that they had a few advantages over us in the painting department…like knowledge, experience, proper equipment *insert eye roll here*. I reluctantly agreed given the looming deadline. When the body shop suggested a three-week turnaround time, I knew the camper rally was out of the question. At first, I’m not going to lie…I was angry and looking for someone to blame. I blamed myself for not spending more time on it this past spring. I blamed Bart for procrastinating once he volunteered himself for the painting responsibility. I blamed the paint shop for not dropping everything at that moment to devote night and day to getting MY job done (because that’s reasonable to think that everyone should be waiting around for us to arrive so that they can serve us, right?!) But, after about 10 minutes of sulking, I told myself to let it go. I believe that in life, there’s a reason for everything, so I chose to accept that there was a reason that I wasn’t going to make it to this rally, and I moved on. This got me to thinking, though (surprise, surprise…)….
Restoration hardly ever goes the way that we think it will and is almost never “on time”! Whether it is something that we restore in the physical realm (an object, our body…) or the emotional/mental realm (freedom from addiction, abuse recovery, developing new habits), we tend to have a mental framework of what that process will look like, but rarely does the actual plan happen the way that we envisioned it to be.
This camper project…there were times that I just really wanted to cover up parts of it with something pretty so that I didn’t have to pull out more rotten wood. I was already struggling with even knowing what to do many times, so to find more things that needed to come out before new could go in, I just really wanted to put the new in on top of it and pretend that the rot wasn’t there. Isn’t that just like life??! I’m just going to keep going…pretending…denying that the hurt, pain, addiction, you-name-it is there, and we’ll smile and put on a good show that everything is fine. This works until it crumbles. How much more effective we could be at restoration if we could find the strength to pull out what needs replacing and then replace it with something good!
The main problem with this plan is that we don’t generally have the strength in ourselves to be able to pull out the bad to deal with it. I mentioned my friend, Rich, in the last Restoration post. I had done everything that I knew to do from a “counseling perspective” to grieve his death and to receive restoration. I put in the work emotionally. I began this camper restoration project as a physical means to grieve and heal. The problem was that my efforts helped just enough to help me keep going, but not enough to restore me. My journey towards restoration began when I set aside time dedicated to recovery and when I began to include others in my process of healing. I came to realize that I needed other people to help me process all the thoughts and reasoning that had been swirling around in my mind, restoration didn’t mean that everything that happened was ok, and that I could do the work that God called me to do if I honored past/people/experiences through restoration rather than keeping myself broken out of guilt in moving forward (as if they would like for us to remain miserable?!) or weakness.
As with any restoration, I don’t think there’s ever a time when we think we’re done. We can stand back and appreciate how far we’ve come with our project whether it’s an object or ourselves, and we always see the hidden imperfections. This is ok. It keeps us humble. Let’s just focus on how far we’ve come, though, appreciate it, and continue working on improvement.
So, the camper before and after...still not finished with the outside, but it is improved to say the least!
Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 2 Cor. 13:11
