Home Improvement

I always knew I was no Martha Stewart. But this last month has proved that I’m no Ty Pennington, either.

We’ve been knee-deep in long overdue house projects this summer, including painting the interior, hanging new drapes, moving my “office” from the kitchen to the dining room and remodeling a moldy, aging bathroom.

I’m very excited about the anticipated results of these projects (we’re not done yet). The difficult, messy process of getting there? Well, not so much.

Thankfully, we hired a great contractor to do the job. (This was not the case six years ago when Hurricane Charley spurred an unplanned remodel of a good portion of our house.) But that doesn’t mean the road to “house heaven” has been a smooth one.

The first day of the bathroom demolition was, shall we say, interesting. The contractor had barely started swinging the sledgehammer, when he yelled, “Come here! You gotta see this!” His voice was urgent and ominous.

I spun around the corner and right into a horror movie.

Hundreds of the biggest ants I’ve ever seen came pouring out of the large hole in my bathroom shower wall. I stood frozen and completely repulsed. Even my contractor clearly had the heebie-jeebies.

“Carpenter ants … they love moisture and mildew and you’ve got plenty of both of them behind this wall. Bet there’s a big nest of these under your tub.”

Ahhh, the joys of living in Florida.

Then there was the discovery of the ailing hot water heater ($$$), the unsalvageable tub (more $$$) and the miscalculation of how much tile to order for the shower.

The best was yet to come, though. A couple of nights ago, my husband was finishing painting a small patch of trim at the top of our living room ceiling.

“Hey, can you spot the ladder for me for a couple minutes?”

“Sure, no problem.”

He was almost done when I began to feel the ladder slip. The rest was like a train wreck that you witness in real-time, but are powerless to stop. I slowed its descent, but trying to keep a ladder carrying my husband’s 6’0” 180lb frame from collapsing proved futile.

Once we determined he was okay other than some nasty scrapes and bruises (and deciding that the blame rested more with the ladder spotter than the person on the ladder ... ahem), we surveyed the damage.

One of our glass end tables was shattered into a million pieces. A lamp that I’d bought not 24 hours before was completely mangled.

In a classic case of returning to the hair of the dog that bit you, we continued on with this project. Not five minutes later, the paint brush flew out of Mike’s hand (not my fault!) and landed on a brand new chair we got for the living room.

The Two Stooges then called it a night.

It struck me how this process is so very similar to parenting. Led by our General Contractor (God), we are doing our best to mold and make our children into something beautiful. We want the process to be smooth and satisfying. Hassle-free.

But we unexpectedly uncover a figurative nest of carpenter ants in the form of an ugly behavior or an old, festering wound – both in our kids and ourselves. And it gives us the heebie-jeebies.

What I’m finding though, is that this is not a bad thing. It’s painful for sure. But a wound can’t heal, a behavior can’t change, until it’s been fully exposed. It’s not pretty. But it’s necessary.

Without tearing down that icky, moldly, ant-infested shower wall, I’d never have the beautiful bathroom I have (or almost have) now.

I used to recoil from the messiness of parenting, try to gloss over behaviors and problems and hope they’d go away.

Now, although I’ll never enjoy the problems, I know they are a necessary part of growth for my kids and for me and my husband.

And even when the kids and I are breaking “tables” and mangling “lamps” along life’s journey, we’re learning lessons that ultimately the General Contractor will use to make something beautiful.

So, whatever battles you are facing in your parenting life right now, don’t despair. Don’t give up. If you persevere, the ultimate Carpenter will one day turn the mess into something amazing.

And He’s way better at it than Ty Pennington.