For so many years – more than a decade, our focus has not been on the house. 2016 is the year our family home will get some attention. It has started bit by bit this year. Renovation of room number 1. It was the original ‘master bedroom’ of the house. Not a very big room and it didn’t have an en suite (still doesn’t) but it is the room that Mike and I slept in for the first 5 years of owning this house. After we extended out home, we moved out of that room and for years it was either a guest room or the bedroom first for Stacey and after she married, David moved into it. Now he has moved out, it has reverted back to a guest room.
And the first post renovation guests will sleep in it on Tuesday night!
Mike has worked hard at getting all the painting finished. I helped here and there. One place I did help which is safe is I painted the skirting board behind the bed! You see no one will see the skirting board there! The first coat is done…
I tried my best!
There are always going to be dark and dingy places in our homes…the hard to reach places that accumulate dirt and only get sorted every now and again.
As I painted along the skirting board, very aware that this was behind the bed and would not be seen, I tried my best to make it look perfect. I have a thing about being transparent. I think it was nurtured in the CCFm studio. On air I was this outgoing, bubbly, happy person. That’s how people perceived me. I didn’t want an onair personality and a separate off air personality. So I took my off air personality into the studio. The outgoing, bubbly, happy Helga when she was feeling down would ‘fake it till she made it.’ I may have walked into the studio feeling flat and I would put on my happy and walk out three hours later feeling happy. I did this on purpose. The listening audience did not deserve misery. They deserved encouragement, happiness and the hope that God brings. As I reassured them, I reassured myself.
The serious stuff is the dirt in our hearts that we don’t deal with. All of us have done stuff of which we are ashamed. Me too. Just read Thursday’s blog! It’s the ‘behind the bed’ muck that lies there for years…never sorted. Every now and again, it may be thought about, but then avoided for a little longer. Truth be told to be free of the dirt, it has to be dealt with. Get it out….clean it up. Repent. Confess. Ask for forgiveness. Feel the freedom that transparency brings. If you do not, the dirt does not go away. It will be dealt with one day, even if it’s at life’s end.
Ecclesiastes 12:14
For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Best deal with it this side of eternity.
Get the muck out from inside your heart. It’s so worth it.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂