“You’re brave to try it,” the man at the paint store said as he mixed up a gallon of green paint.
That statement should have been a warning, but I heard a call to be courageous.
It’s not like I was making the decision lightly. Changing my laundry room and connecting half bathroom walls from a calming shade of blue to a somewhat bright green hue. I had thought about it. Dare I say, for years.
The idea came out of a little longing I’ve had for a sunroom. Think glass doors, brick flooring, comfy chairs for reading. And plants…green plants. Throw pillows with green accents to compliment the plants.
This daydream was meant only for a thought, not a reality. Let’s face it, a kid in college, a sky-high grocery bill, and a part-time job do not result in a house addition. All of those factors aside, our floorplan and yard stopped the idea before it could even get warmed up.
Somehow along the way, the thought of having a sunroom accented with greens gave way to painting the walls of my laundry room a bright cheery green. Problem solved. Contentment reached.
Until we put the paint on the walls. What I had imagined in my head did not translate to the plaster walls. Let me repeat, it did not translate well.
We couldn’t finish. It was so bright. Back to the paint store for samples. Then to Lowe’s for more samples. I couldn’t keep facing the man who had called out my bravery. We tried to fix it. To find the right shade of green that would fulfill my wishes, match the rest of the house, and put an end to the madness. This battle went on for weeks. The right shade was non-existent. And the thought that we had put money into the “good” paint kept gnawing at me. So we finally just chunked the samples and went with the courageous shade of green.
I remember one night walking into the house with my boys and one of them declaring, “Oh, I forgot. We live in a putt-putt course.” Confirmation that I had missed the mark of a rich, classy shade of green.
And then that text from my best friend, “I miss the blue.”
Yep, we all missed it. The nice, calming, not all-up-in-your face-shade was a thing of the past. Replaced with an intense and vivid palette. A new rug was bought, new curtains were hung. Now it was time to just deal with it.
“I like it,” I would say out loud trying to convince myself and meekly thank my husband for his effort. “I do too,” he would say. We politely lied to each other time and again trying to accept the glaring existence.
I spend a lot of time in that laundry room surrounded by that obtrusive green paint. Sometimes I ignore it and sometimes I try to embrace it. It’s my reality for now. And as I wash and dry and fold, I do a lot of thinking too. A lot of thinking about the world around me. Sometimes it’s my own little world and sometimes it’s the bigger one.
And sometimes I wish I could change what’s surrounding me. The headlines, the culture, all of the looming big, bad, screaming issues engulfing us. Add to those, the what-ifs and the longings in my own little life. I wrestle with the reality of being put in this time and of course, raising my kids in the here and now.
But here I stand in the reality of the present. And you are too. Maybe your glaring reality isn’t green paint or thoughts of a world disaster. It’s loneliness, it’s a diagnosis, it’s a lost relationship. Maybe you’re longing for a simpler time when you could fix your kids’ boo-boos with a kiss and a bandaid. Or a time when you felt happy or secure or confident. Calmer days, better days.
But we were put here. In this time, in this place for a purpose. While we can’t necessarily change what’s around us, we can love and serve despite of it.
As I’m typing this, I can peek through my kitchen doorway and see that green paint staring back at me. It’s still there. Several months into the whole paint fiasco, I landed on some hope: Christmas.
Christmas was coming and it would help to redeem the green paint. Surely if the green didn’t match anything else, it would match Christmas. So I bought cute hand towels for the bathroom and when the time was right, hung up pictures with just the right shade of green. And if only for a season, the problem has been solved. Redeemed in a way.
Isn’t that what Christmas does? It redeems. No, it doesn’t erase the backdrop of what we’re facing. It doesn’t transport us to a different place in time we’d rather be. Our echos of “Joy to the World” may not match the hues of what we’re actually facing. But it makes a way. Jesus came to redeem and make a way through the messes we’ve made.
He came to a very flawed world, born into much less than perfect circumstances. But He was the Hope, the Messiah, so many had waited for. And He is still the only One who can come into our lives and change us right where we are. We may be in the middle of a disaster, a crisis, or a pity party but when He shows up, all that we’re living in is no longer the focus. We see Him and He changes everything.
This Christmas, whether you are in a pristine place in life or a muddled-up mess, celebrate our Redeemer. Might not alter your circumstances (or your tacky green paint), but He will surely change your life.
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14