Remodel a Year Later

It has been a year since we starting tearing apart our kitchen for a full remodel.  The job wasn't finished until a couple of weeks before Christmas but that's what happens when you do-it-yourself.  Seven months after its completion, I still marvel that it's my (our) kitchen.  Any negative "remodel feelings" are relegated to history, and all I feel is joy and gratitude for my good fortune.

Funny how that works.  Like how the pain of the delivery room is long forgotten, and all I remember are the incredible feelings of amazement and love when I looked upon my son's face for the first time.  Sometimes the suffering we go through is so overshadowed by the amazing outcome on the other side, like gold or silver being refined by the fire.

God knows this.  That's why He allows me to endure trials and doesn't immediately rescue me from the flame. 

He will sit like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. (Mal 3:3) ... I (God) have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering. (Isa 48:10)

I am fully aware that some suffer more than others.  And that some find it highly offensive and off-putting for God to allow them to suffer, and reject Him because of it.   However, I would be highly offended if He was a God who just let me slip through life unfinished.   I am grateful for His faithfulness that I am not left as a lump of base metal, never to realize my full potential or fulfill His purpose in me.    I am grateful for a God who promises to grow and prosper me, even through a process that I may not understand (or even like).
 
The Lord's promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over. (Ps 12:6)   


(If you missed any or all of our remodeling story, just click on Lessons from the Kitchen in the right hand column of this blog and you can visit or revisit the story in detail.)