“There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent”
Luke 15:7
This may sound pretty elementary. It may not sound too profound. But take it as you will.
I remember sitting in my advisor’s office senior year of college and having him read over a draft of my senior thesis. And I remember how frustrated he was with me. Because the prominence of my tendency to focus on minor details highly compromised my ability to see the big picture of situations. And it was causing me to struggle, and to be stuck, and to overthink everything. And well, I haven’t changed.
It is currently month three of the race and five teams of my squad have been working with our lovely contact, Raul, for Hope Church in Draganesti-Olt, Romania. These past four days however, my team was sent to Stoborasti, a village about an hour outside of Draganesti-Olt, to work with a wonderful man named Alex and the church at which he preaches. Although we held an AWANA kid’s club one morning and have managed to consume the most delicious of foods, our main project for the duration of our stay was to help fix up the church for its anniversary celebration- a task we all accepted with open arms. Manual labor, finally.
Our four days would be spent painting. Painting benches, painting doors, painting widows, painting window sills, painting fences. Really, painting anything that wasn’t the strangest color of mahogany red the color mahogany red. And it was a poor bench, the front of the surrounding fence, a doorway, and a window sill that were left to the expense of my clumsy and unsteady hands.
As I stood outside the front of the fence, Alex not only handed me a can of paint and a brush, but also newspaper to preserve the appearance of the sidewalk. The same of which he did the following day in order to maintain the whiteness of the walls. A task I immediately deemed simple due to my extreme particularity and perfectionism. That won’t be a problem, I thought.
And it wasn’t a problem. Not until I just happened to flinch when I had too much paint on my brush. A flinch that resulted in the sidewalk resembling a minor crime scene. And as I progressed, the accidental drops of paint that expectantly covered the newspaper also began to cover the sidewalk, my shoes, and my entire body. And even though I felt bad, I convinced myself that it would be okay since it was just a sidewalk- nobody would notice. At least it wasn’t a wall or something.
The next day however, it was. As I stood and looked at my freshly painted mahogany red doorway and window sill, I couldn’t help but notice the abstract strokes of red that now decorated the surrounding white walls.
And I felt bad. Really bad. If only I had paid more attention. Or taken more time. It could have been perfect- the wall could have still been white. But as I was standing there, Alex walked up to me and reminded me that it would take no time at all to touch the walls up with white paint. Of course, how could I forget such an easy solution? I was too busy focusing on how I had messed up to even consider how easily it could be fixed. I was paying too much attention to the minor detaily mistakes that I wasn’t able to see the beauty of the final product.
And I realized how often I do that in life. So often I get so upset and discouraged when I mess up and make mistakes that I inhibit my ability to see how beautiful things can be despite them. And I do that with myself. As if the mistakes I make are going to prevent me from becoming as beautiful of a person as I would have been if I had not made them to begin with.
And well, that just isn’t true. Because despite the mistakes, and the mess ups, and how many times I continually go outside the lines, I can always be fixed. In fact, God even rejoices more over me when I repent than when I do not need to repent. God can always redeem me. And he will. And in the end, I will be just as beautiful as intended. Perhaps even more beautiful because of it- just like my newly red polka-dotted Chacos.
