**So, I’ve left this corner of the world untouched for a bit….I’m feeling a bit sick with stage fright knowing this is my first time to post in a while. but here goes… 1… 2… 3… it’s time to REstart**

Last year was an amazing, miraculous, horrific, full to overflowing, and yet an incredibly lean year – all wrapped in one. I didn’t blog much because I couldn’t gather all of my thoughts and get them to line up in a way to even narrow them down, let alone try to write them out so anyone could make sense of what I thought I was trying to say – most of all I figured your time was more valuable than reading my rambling. However, bits of this processing will be recorded here as more time passes and it makes more sense… Life lessons don’t just go away because it’s a new year. 🙂

I’ve done lots of processing with the help of paper | notebooks | journals and pens | colored sharpies | and colored pencils; and have been guided while reading some amazing books! It’s been good. But I’m so ready to blog here again.

While I would think of writing here often, there has just been so much life all around me [and with my laptop out of commission right now] I couldn’t quite make it to posting. There is only so much sitting in front of the big computer I can handle in a day.

To ease into my space again, I am going to share many recent house projects. To start things off we’re going to look at the dresser.

Background: I’ve had Mr. Dresser for …. uh, 10 years! This dresser was purchased for $25 at a garage sale/thrift store (don’t remember which – but not the point) and you could see the ‘potential’, but that potential was never uncovered. I have lived with this horrible looking dresser in various places of our physical space because:

• it is solid, real wood. [which means it is incredibly HEAVY to move!]
• it is almost as tall as me [= a great room divider].
• all of the drawers work.
• mostly though – because it had ‘potential’.

So, when we were working on Christine’s room there was the given house project avalanche of side effects. A lot like, “if you give a mouse a cookie/a moose a muffin/a mom a moment…” type of side effect. (she was moving out of our bedroom, so my office was moving into that space, so our living room was changing)

It was time to either get rid of the dresser. or attack it with paint and see if I liked it.

I attacked it. wholeheartedly and clueless to what I was doing. In the end, I love the way it looks! and I’m finally going to share it here :-).

Here are a couple photos of the stripping process. That is some NASTY stuff! It stinks, it burns, it’s hard to get rid of, but it made the wood so much prettier – on the drawers at least. The sun hitting it directly made it not look so nice – but it painted over fine (phew!).

At this point I was wondering if I should just work harder on stripping the main part and just oil the wood – but it was still pretty dark. My living room walls are dark’ish blue so I didn’t want a huge, obvious, dark brown dresser in my living room. Not really the look I was going for, I wanted it to blend in more. Besides, I knew I had my grandma’s old singer sewing machine to sit on the top – and it is dark brown.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the hardware. I knew I couldn’t afford to buy anything, but hadn’t painted metal before. and I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up.

It was simple. [and has held up find]

I spray painted the hardware a flat gray color.

Then with a dark charcoal craft paint I sponge daubed paint on, then rubbed across with a rag to make horizontal streaks. Way simple! [and FREE!]

With some more craft paint and a bit of mis-tint paint I went at the wood parts. I did an ‘April version’ of dry brushing [ie: I read an idea, then do my own thing. I don’t follow directions real well – they confuse me :-)]. It worked!

I love the end result!

This project accomplished many side-goals I had in mind too!

• it blends with my wall. but still holds its own.
• it houses an enormous amount of stuff. (top 2 drawers are most used office/school supplies, 3rd & 4th drawers are for Christine’s school stuff, and the bottom is DVDs)
• & in addition, now instead of the chair you see on the left, it is a protective corner for Mr. C.

cost of project:

• a high estimate on paint = $5
• wood stripper = uh…don’t have a clue, I got it from my dad’s shop {sheepishly grinning}
• time = a couple days

~~~

While thinking about posting again. and about the dresser. and taking into account all I’ve learned over the last year. I couldn’t help but think of the dresser as an example [of sorts] of me. us. people in general.

God has been opening my eyes to my value in Him. not as I perceive myself, but how He sees me. I have been dinged by life and the results are scratches & dents; I’m still useful and practical, but I haven’t necessarily appreciated who I am in Christ – my potential has been kept covered, by me.

I have allowed fear to hold me back. a lot. I’ve chosen recently to be proactive in not letting fear win. It is getting easier, but I still forget too often. Anyway, I was afraid of making a mess of the dresser for 10 years (10 years I lived with it ugly because it worked and I was afraid!).

I was trying to avoid failure. Early in life I made the childish decision to not make mistakes in life. I would listen, learn from others, then only do the “right” thing. [For the record, I failed daily even while stressing myself out trying to accomplish the impossible.] I have held myself to that ridiculous standard and hung onto the resulting shame for way too many years.

There isn’t a day I don’t notice the dresser (that is my bedroom/office just past it on the right and the bathroom door is on the other side of my bedroom doorway) and am so very thankful I finally chose to try. I suspect as time goes on and Christ continues His work work in me (Philippians 1:6), I will come to love this end product too :-).

How does any of this tie in to a dresser makeover? Just like I see the ugly dresser differently, I’m starting to see myself a little more differently each day too, more the way God sees me.

I’m still the same me. Just like it’s still the same dresser.
I still have the same story, with just a bit more memories added; just like he dresser still has all its nicks, dings, and dents (+ a few more added in the refurb process).

Remember what I said about the wood stripper – it stinks, it burns, it’s hard to get rid of, but it made the wood so much prettier. It is much like the process of removing the ick I’ve allowed to hang on me. It stinks, it burns, it’s hard to get rid of, but I hope it has made more of Christ shine through me. For some reason it’s really touching my heart that the wood stripper came from my dad’s shop – just like the only way I can be stripped of the ick in my life is for my Heavenly Father to take me to His shop.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 [ESV]

What do you think? Are you kind of like a dresser needing to be refurbished? Is it time to get past your fears and failures, your fear of failure, and go through the pain?