My wife and I are refinishing our dining room furniture. The last time we did this, we painted everything black, and it served us well. Now, however, we’re lightening things up.
We could have chosen to cover everything in Kilz and then paint it the not-quite-cream, not-quite-white color we’re going for, but my wife never really liked the finish of the tabletop from the beginning of its life as black furniture. So, we’re stripping everything down to the bare wood.
That process of removing the old to prepare for the new is where I learned my most recent life lessons:
Sure, we could have painted over the black, but we wouldn’t have gotten the lasting results we wanted. How many times have I tried to take the easy way out and cover up my past, my mistakes or my shortcomings by throwing on a smile and some clean clothes? From the outside, everything looked fine, but down deep were all the marks and scars of a broken man.
Getting down to the bare wood was far more difficult that we anticipated. It’s taken a combination of acid, heat and elbow grease to get to where we want to be. I don’t like tough days any more than you do, but the reality is that things aren’t likely to change until something gets under our skin, burns us or rubs us the wrong way. I don’t like heat. I don’t like being scraped, and I sure don’t like to be burned, but those things are necessary to get down to the good stuff. I just wish I could remember that in the heat of things—pun intended.
Once we got through the two layers of paint, we realized there was more work to do. There were stubborn places, especially those that had a lot of the detail – some would say beauty. Those deep fluted lines and elegant curves require finesse and attention. Sanding did a decent job, but the tool that did the trick on those important spots was a tiny Dremel tool with a special attachment that had to be inserted into those deep places.
I do pretty well with surface stuff. After nearly 61 years, my skin has gotten thicker, but I still have deep, painful wounds that hang on to the past. I can usually let a mistake go, but someone’s cutting words or deliberate attempt to hurt hit at another level that not even heat or acid can get to. I don’t know why, but I tend not to invite God into those spaces either. Acknowledging that I have those places puts my spiritual pursuits on a completely different level than I’m usually comfortable with.
Sanding is an art of its own. To get to the grain I was searching for, I had to use 80-grit sandpaper. It’s rough, pebbled and abrasive, and it often takes several passes to get down to the wood. On the tabletop, which stripped easily, I decided to forego the 80-grit for a fine, 220. BIG MISTAKE. The fine sanding exposed deeper gouges and colorations. Skipping the rough patch wasn’t an option if I wanted a beautiful outcome. I want what is best for me, and to get there, I have to go through some rough patches. Otherwise, the ugly and painful scars of my past will still be there.
Those gouges and colorations? They weren’t defects in the wood. They were put there by life itself. Frankly, there were a few I wanted to hold on to because I knew what they represented. One of my kids had written their name in ink that had seeped into the finish. Another had drawn a pretty good angel fish. Along the edges there were marks from zippers, pencils, and Lord knows what else. Sanding them away brought back memories of my now-grown kids. “Maybe I should leave them,” I thought to myself. In the end, I couldn’t. I was after perfection – at least as perfect as I could get. Getting rid of the marks didn’t get rid of the memories.
Perfection is an illusion. I counted that about 20 passes of the electric sander with 220-grit paper was the recipe for the smooth finish I was after. I ran my hand along the tabletop only to discover a missed bump, rough spot or nick I had missed. I didn’t see them. I had to feel them. What I know is that the missed places will be visible when the table is back in its place. Why? They’ll be illuminated by the large chandelier that will hang over the table. Light exposes imperfection, but light is also truth and necessary to see beauty. I have a tendency to want to run away from the light when it puts my shortcomings on full display, but exposing myself to the light is exactly what I need.
When I finish sanding, I wipe down the furniture to reveal my results, and every time I am covered in sawdust and sweat. The lesson? The object doesn’t get covered in dust. I – the sander – do. I spend so much time worrying about how I look and feel that I forget that I’m not the one getting covered up by the leftovers of my life junk. Jesus doesn’t make me wear dust as some kind of sackcloth or scarlet A. He’s the one covered in my sawdust, and for that I am grateful.
There was a time in my life when I thought spiritual cleansing was a one-and-done kind of act, and in many ways it is. (Thank God for grace.) But the process of perfecting takes a lifetime. At first it took intense heat and penetrating acid to get rid of the most obvious junk in my life. Sixty years later, I’m in the sanding phase. Things still hurt, but not as much. I’ve got a lot of dings and dents. I don’t always get things right, and I still don’t like to burned or rubbed the wrong way, but I know those things are necessary if I am to be the man I want to be.
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