Putting it Together

by | Jan 28, 2013 | Life & Faith | 8 comments

 

Our dining room is topsy turvy.
Kitchen chairs and barstools are hidden and stashed in a closet in the bedroom.
There’s no room for but four people at our dining table.
The living room bookshelves now attend the table, stacked on their sides and emptied, banana boxes stuffed with the contents.

Pieces of furniture are arranged Rubik’s-cube-like so they j u s t  f i t in the space we have. (My husband, aka McGyver), has always been an expert car-trunk-packer and dishwasher-stacker.)  His eye for detail and small spaces is so very opposite the broadstroke approach I take to looking at life.

Bill repositions the dining table to fit the space, while I make sure the chairs are facing the right direction i.e., towards the window so I can look out at the birds while I type.

 

We each have our priorities (I know what’s important–it’s all about the view.

We’re getting ready for a new season —Home Improvement.  (It comes right after Christmas and just before Spring.) 
In a couple of weeks we have new carpet coming, along with 3 rooms of laminate flooring in the bedrooms and 2 bathrooms scheduled for new linoleum. Hence the moving around and make room so things  F I T….

I’ve heard tell that times like this can wreak havoc in a marriage, but so far we are weathering the chaos well.
It is a miracle of God the way the pieces of our lives have been fit together to stay put, no matter how many times we change rooms and views.  
How is that possible?  By constantly adjusting and fine tuning.  Giving, taking, apologizing, forgiving. Working on being suitable to one another.

“FIT” is the word God gave me for this year and He is making sure I have a chance to live it out in an all too real way.  
The Message Bible says this in Psalm 7, verses 9 & 10:

“You get us ready for life: you probe for our soft spots, 
you knock off our rough edges.
And I’m feeling so fit, so safe:
made right, kept right.”
I thought about all this fitting into the challenging places of a marriage when I was reading Chapter 10 of ‘Booked–Literature in the Soul of Me’.  Professor Karen Swallow Prior teaches English Literature and writes in a remarkable way about finding God in the middle of good books.

In a connection I never would expect to find between John Donne’s poetry and spirituality, Prior writes:   “God used marriage to gentle me.”

Indeed, God is using marriage to gentle me.  I am discovering each day, each month, each year that, 
“marriage is a metaphor that is a picture of the kind of love God has for his people: self-sacrificing and other-focused, spiritual and physical, earthly and transcendent, reasonable and passionate.” (‘Booked’, p. 187.)
 
Marriage is a job of work, as my sweet friend Judy has told me over the years.
And,
“To join the unlike– a man and a woman, reason and passion,
(finding the view and stacking the books) is the work of the poet and of God.”  (ibid.)
 
Fit–“adapted to and suited to one another”–for life, for marriage.
~~~~~

8 Comments

  1. Thistle Cove Farm on 01/31/2013 at

    “…it's all about the view…” I'm with you there, Sister! For me, daily, it's all about the VIEW!

    Reply
  2. Janice C Johnson on 01/29/2013 at

    And I just LOVE the Rubik's-Cube furniture image! So true when there's a project afoot.

    Reply
  3. Janice C Johnson on 01/29/2013 at

    Hmm… I never thought about it, but marriage has gentled me, too! Odd, though, that I never seem to get ALL the rough patches smoothed out at the same time.

    Reply
  4. Jennifer Camp on 01/29/2013 at

    Jody, your words are so encouraging. I so appreciate your sharing your heart around marriage–the beauty of marriage when we trust God to do the work in us that this partnership requires. Happy to be linked up behind you at Jen's this week!

    Reply
  5. Jody Lee Collins on 01/28/2013 at

    Oh, Laura, I hope by the grace of God we can keep 'fun' as the operative word.
    I'll work a photo progression as things move along.

    Thanks so much for stopping by. It's good to hear your 'voice'. 🙂

    Reply
  6. Jody Lee Collins on 01/28/2013 at

    “A home pro cement project”? Hmmmm……sidewalks, patios?

    I don't know that I'd even venture a guess.

    I'll post pictures of the view from the kitchen table soon.
    Thanks for reading, Nancy.

    Reply
  7. Laura Boggess on 01/28/2013 at

    How fun, Jody! I hope you show us pictures along the way too. I'm so glad you joined us for this book discussion. Booked sure has blessed me too. It has been nice hearing your voice along the way.

    Reply
  8. Nancy on 01/28/2013 at

    Few things will gentle, or humble, a marriage quite like a home pro cement project.

    I love imagining you writing with a view.

    Reply

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