Construction

Reader, I'm not sure how strong your stomach is, but this post has some disgustingness in it. I think it comes with the territory.

Anyone who's ever driven in the Metroplex has probably encountered construction. It's an annoyingly, excruciatingly, extremely inconvenient phenomenon. Maybe driving down a highway that's under construction wouldn't be so bad if all a driver had to deal with was the eyesore of bright-orange signs, cones, and barrels all along the road. But what makes it so terrible is the time that it adds to your trip. Driving to work, thinking I'm making decent time, and then suddenly having to step on my brakes because somebody closed a lane is usually a quick way to get a groan out of the depths of my belly, because slowing down from 60 MPH to 5 MPH probably means that I'm going to arrive at my destination late. Regardless of what I encounter on my work commute, there are a couple of highways in my area that have been undergoing some major changes and additions over a period of years. People will re-paint the lines in the road quite frequently to accommodate whatever work needs to be done. More than once, while I've driven on a highway with freshly painted lanes, I've remarked, "Did somebody draw these lines with their feet?" It's not uncommon for people to avoid construction altogether and take the back roads instead.

And, of course, construction isn't just limited to highways. If you surf the web and find a website that says "Under Construction," that means whoever's in charge of the website isn't finished building it yet. No problem. You can just back out of that page and visit a different website instead.

But there are some construction jobs that can't be avoided, and the inconvenience is tremendously huge, and the awkwardness is majorly painful... because it's happening right in your neighborhood, right where you live, right in your face.

"The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:2-3)

The photo at the beginning of this post is part of the sign that bears my address. (I'm not going to display my entire address. Sometimes a chick needs some privacy, even on her blog.) When I first moved in, this sign was hanging on the exterior wall of my apartment. But shortly after I moved in, my apartment complex started remodeling the exterior. This has been a majorly noisy, inconvenient process. One of my picture frames fell off my wall during the hammering one day. Another day, I had to sneak around a huge plastic covering, a homemade wooden scaffold, and an electric nail gun on my way to my car. On another day, I had to work from home during the incessant hammering and miscellaneous construction noises.

That was almost 3 months ago. They still haven't reaffixed my address-sign to my building; it's still sitting on the ground at my front porch. I think they still need to paint the exterior walls and do some more finishing touches. They didn't even sweep up any of the mess, either -- the nails and the wood chips on the sidewalk. The mess just gradually has blown away with wind and the rain or gotten shuffled around with foot traffic, I suppose. A lot of it is still there. And what I've described is just my section of the complex. I walked to a different part of the complex this evening and saw that construction has barely begun in other parts. Piles of lumber are stacked on sidewalks. Chunks of mud are strewn in other places. The whole place is a mess.

But to me, the biggest inconvenience has been not having my address-sign displayed on my building. I don't feel comfortable doing something like ordering a pizza if a deliveryperson won't be able to see where I live. Maybe I should get creative like my neighbors and just nail the address-sign to the building myself. (I've seen a couple of address-signs hanging a short distance off the ground.)

When I first moved in, I knew that the apartment people wanted to remodel the exterior. I knew construction was inevitable. I just didn't realize how long it would take or how noisy, frustrating, and inconvenient it would be. I'm OK with it overall. I just wish it would be over soon. I really look forward to enjoying the finished product.

No, I'm not using this blog post to vent about my apartment complex being under construction. I'm building up to a metaphor. Sometimes a nifty little "Under Construction" sign can signal to a person to be extra careful with the roadway, website, or apartment that's undergoing a major overhaul. But when your soul is under construction, you might not have the luxury of putting up a nifty little sign for other people to see and be aware of your sensitive process.

Perhaps I've already shared this in bits and pieces, but I'd like to solidify it a bit more here. One reason why I got so sick and depressed in 1998-2000 is because God wanted to take me through a very hard place of rebuilding my soul. He wanted to take away things that had been numbing pain that had been buried deep inside me. But I disobeyed Him, and I didn't let Him do the reconstruction that He wanted to do. Sure, He was restoring and reconstructing to a degree. But He wanted to do more, and He wanted the construction to be more effective and permanent. I think I allowed Him to build a brand-new overpass, but what I really needed was brand-new pavement and lanes on the main highway. I think I allowed Him to add new bells and whistles to my page, but what I really needed was a new URL. I think I allowed Him to strip off the siding and slap on a fresh coat of paint, but what I really needed was to let Him repair the devastating cracks in my foundation.

God wanted me to be honest, buttcrack honest, about how I was feeling. Perhaps everybody deals with pain differently, but I grew up being taught to ignore pain and just slap on a fresh coat of whitewash. I think I allowed that pattern to continue when I became an adult. A perfect example of this occurred during a worship service circa 1998-1999 where I was working through some pain. Most everybody around me was standing up and singing to God, but I was sitting down and trying to think through some stuff. I'm a very deep person. If I hurt, the wound will often be very deep and could take a very long time to flush out and heal. But during this worship service, the person next to me (who happened to be my friend/shepherd/mentor) grabbed my arm and lifted me to my feet so that I could sing joyfully to the Lord like everybody else was around me. So, I chuckled, painted on a half-fake smile, and ignored my pain a little bit longer. About a year or so later, I called this person and explained to them that I had just been released from a psych hospital.

God wanted me to be buttcrack honest so that I could pour out my heart (Psalm 62) and empty out the decaying parts. That's been a huge part of my healing. A wound might not heal properly if it stays infected. A boil might not clear up if it isn't lanced. If poop stays in your system without evacuating through your colon, your system will back up, your body will process your poop as if it were nourishment, your blood could become infected with sepsis, and you could die.

God wanted me to be buttcrack honest! (During one excruciatingly hard season several years ago, I was like, "I feel like I'm living in a buttcrack. It's sweaty, tight, and stinky here.") For me, if I was feeling excruciatingly sad about something, the real solution wasn't to say, "Oh, Christians are supposed to be happy all the time and focus on Jesus," ignore my pain, and proceed as normal. That fakey-fake solution almost killed me. The real solution was to say, "God, I'm feeling excruciatingly sad, and I don't understand why. Jesus, can You please show me what the bleep is floating around inside my system and flush it out? You're my Doctor. Can You please heal me? I'm not OK right now, and I can't get better on my own."

I had sepsis in my soul, and I needed to let God drain it out. I needed a transfusion. Frankly, He's still draining me out, transfusing me with new life, and leading me out of the buttcrack-stinky place. Jesus is the gentlest Person in the universe, but He's also the strongest Person in the universe. He bought me. He owns me. He can do whatever He wants with me. So, sometimes He gently leads me to a soft place and lets me cry on His shoulder like a good Mama would. And sometimes He kicks me in the butt, slices my soul open without using any anesthesia, and after I've screamed my guts out, He pats me heartily on the shoulder like a good Daddy would.

While I'm under construction, I will be majorly inconvenienced, but I want God to take His time and do a good job. He always does the best job, He doesn't sleep on the job, and He cares about His job. He'll make sure I arrive at my destination on time. He'll make sure I arrive safely. He doesn't draw lines with His feet. Hmm. I probably don't need to order any pizza, anyway.