He thought that red would make the old farmhouse pop.
He won. (And truthfully, I'm glad he did).
Painting the old farm house has been making me long for Home.
It's funny the things we do to convince our hearts that things will be better.
"If we just remodel this or that, then I'll like our home better."
Or, "If I just bought that one cute dress, it might cover up the fact that I haven't exercised in months."
And as the Cowboy and I, S_L_O_W_L_Y paint the farmhouse on the weekends for nearly a month straight, I find that the very thing that was supposed to kinda perk up the old house, has instead reminded my heart of how flawed and fading this world really is.
As we move along the sill, we find rotting wood on it's arch.
A wood pecker has pecked a perfect circle in the center of our roof... It has become a home to a mama blue bird and her babies.
There are cracks and dents and holes around every corner.
And here I am, with a $30 bucket of red paint, stroking a brush back and forth, trying to make the farmhouse something that it's not... something perfect.
Nothing here is perfect.
It's all withering, it's all fading.
I thought when we were gathering supplies at the Home Depot that I was gathering a way to make my heart feel more content.
What I found as I painted was that my heart is really just always homesick for my forever Home.
"The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord stands forever."
I know this, but I still try to convince myself otherwise.
I can paint all I want, but I can't cover up the messy-beautiful of this place. I can't make new what was already destroyed thousands of years ago in the garden.
Red on white. I'm far from being a professional painter and I keep "accidentally" slipping the red onto the white. There are imperfections everywhere.
I'm so thankful for this farmhouse. But my heart knows that I'm only passing through. And quite frankly, I just can hardly wait to go Home. Home to the place where the paint will never fade, where the red will never bleed into the white. The place where there will be no cracks or holes or dents in unwanted places... Neither on my eternal farmhouse, nor on the walls of my heart. :)
Ahhhh, H_O_M_E!
I can hardly wait!
But until then, I'll settle for a bucket of red paint and a few sunny weekends with the Cowboy painting right along side of me, him winking up at me from underneath his cowboy hat. :)
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One more side of the farmhouse to go... then I'll post pictures of the final messy-beautiful place that we currently call home...
