I Made A Mess!

This morning after dropping my brother and his wife at the airport I drove another 20 minutes to meet a friend at his storage unit. It was four years ago that I met Gary’s dad, Brad at a painting project. I will always remember this specific project because it didn’t turn out great. Yes, the house was painted and those involved had a good experience. The challenge was that a few of the teens made a big mess in the beginning part of the project. I was fortunate to have a good friend overseeing the project who was quick to make the mess disappear.

I will always remember the ‘lecture’ or talk I got from Brad, who is a painting contractor. He’s an older guy who has been in business for some time and clearly is successful. I had to swallow my pride and just listen. I’m like everyone else because no one likes being reprimanded. Yet, as I listened what he said made sense. I agreed that using 5 gallon buckets and screens instead of pans with rollers would be much better. The likely hood of a mess is taken away and it is easier to fill the buckets than the pans.

After I finished listening to him and shaking his hand something amazing happened. He continued and said he liked what we were doing and would love to supply us with paint that he has that are left overs from his various jobs. This began a relationship that has helped us paint most of our 60 homes. I also ended up developing a friendship with another local small business that sells painting supplies and paint that is also seconds.

When we first decided to do painting it was through partnering with Rebuilding Together of Arizona, which supplied the paint and the house. They were instrumental in helping give me the nuts and bolts approach to doing something simple that would impact a family and a neighborhood. Our first couple of houses we did were outside our target neighborhood. Yet, after getting our first house, Mrs. Garcia, in South Phoenix, we didn’t have any difficulty finding more homes and churches to paint.

One of the most difficult lessons in life that is ongoing is how you deal with problems and personal life messes. It is too easy at times to pretend nothing is really happening or blow up and cast the blame totally on someone else. What I learned through this is, that you can teach an old-dog new tricks. If we hadn’t made a mess that Saturday I’m not sure if Brad would have been as willing to donate the paint that has allowed us to bless a lot of seniors over the last four years.

I know that no matter how careful I’m that I will still make messes and the teens and people around me will also make messes. The great news is that God is in the business of not only cleaning up messes but also helping us understand how to deal with personal messes with grace and mercy and not hyper-criticalness.