Mr. Fix-it and Me

     This was written over fifteen years ago. Hope you enjoy the rest of the week’s devotions from some of my older writings.

     My Mr. Fix-it was about to leave town for three weeks. It would be the longest time we had been apart since we were married. Oh, I would miss him terribly, but there was an air of excitement within me. This could be the long-awaited opportunity for my do-it-yourself project.

     Don’t get me wrong. I am eternally grateful to have him around.  He knows how to swing a hammer, sheet rock and mud a wall to a smooth perfection, fix a leaky faucet or a sputtering lawn mower. But when it comes to creative projects around the house, we view the world through a different lens.

     He believes nails can only be hammered into studs. Pictures must be hung symmetrically above furniture, preferably one per wall. He did agree to a grouping of three pictures above our living room couch, only because the lines of the pictures hung perfectly above the lines of our couch cushions, which directly aligned with the glass pattern on our coffee table. It could drive a person insane!

     It took me five years to wear him down and convince him to hang window boxes outside our bedroom windows. Drilling those holes into the vinyl siding took years off of his life. I’ll never forget the look on his face and the sweat pouring down as he picked up the drill. 

     We tried one project together. Why didn’t someone warn me? Not only was it a nightmarish wallpapering experience, but it took place in the small, confined area of our downstairs bathroom. For some reason we picked a very dark colored paper and the seams simply would not stick. The humidity of the downstairs, along with the moisture from the shower, invariably pulled them loose time after time.

     You can imagine how Mr. Fix-it viewed those pesky, unruly seams. He avoided the downstairs bathroom completely.  And over the months to come, our young daughters could not resist the urge to peel those seams. I needed to get rid of that wallpaper. I had a beautiful golden paint in mind, along with some diamond-patterned towels to match.

     And so I waved tearfully goodbye and ran immediately downstairs. I was sure the wallpaper would come right off. After all, the seams had peeled so easily.

And I was so wrong.

     I worked feverishly trying different methods of wallpaper removal. It was so frustrating.  And as I worked, the smooth sheet-rocked walls my husband had put up so carefully beneath that pesky wallpaper began to peel away along with the wallpaper. I was in a panic. There wee gouged spots here and there. I started to feel sick.

     After I put the girls to bed, I crawled into my own bed, exhausted and bewildered.  I played scenarios back and forth in my head on how to explain this to my husband. There was no way out. I turned on the TV for a distraction from the disaster.

There was what I can only explain as a God-inspired intervention.

     The Home and Garden channel provided a miracle. The show centered on a do-it-yourself project; on how to cover an injured, cracked or uneven wall. All I needed was the same substance originally used to make the walls look so pretty and smooth. Sheet rock mud!

I took notes and slept like a baby.

     Looking back, I can’t imagine trying this again. Somehow, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire project. I lugged that heavy bucket of mud from the garage to the downstairs bathroom.  I added a little water and went to work or should I say, began to play? I swirled it with a paintbrush. I made lines with a putty knife and covered those gouges with a practiced eye. I covered every inch of those poor walls with an asymmetrical pattern of mud. And there I left it for two days to dry.

     It took awhile to cover all of those lines and swirls with the honey-colored paint, but I did it. I made a diamond-patterned stencil in cardboard and painted a border in a deep maroon and an even deeper gold above the tub surround. It matched both the color and the pattern of my fresh new set of towels.

     My husband was amazed, surprised and I have to say proud when he came home, although I don’t think he completely understood the state of the walls beneath the beauty. He added to my project with his expertise. He saw some tiny specks of white showing through the lines and swirls and took the deeper gold color I had used in the diamond pattern and sponged it over the lighter-honey colored walls. It had an old-world charm with a stucco texture.

     Imagine Mr. Fix-it actually sponge-painting! I guess we have learned a thing or two from each other over the years.

     That was over ten years ago. Many things have changed, but my appreciation for Mr. Fix-it has only continued to grow. And in the years in between, he has agreed to a purple-colored living room and I always (well, sometimes) look for a stud before pounding a nail.  Our now teenaged daughters have repainted the downstairs bathroom with a bright turquoise and we purchased neon colored towels. One of our daughters is neat and orderly and the other works in a creative chaos.

     Maybe someday, they, too, will come to a middle ground just like Mr. Fix-it and me. And remember, once we meet Jesus, He covered all of those blemishes and messy areas beneath the surface of our lives, and paints us in new and glorious hues.  



You, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay and You are the potter. We are all the work of Your hand. Isaiah 64:8

Lord,

Mold us with Your creative hands, using our gifts and talents to serve You. Help us to appreciate and affirm the differences and the beauty in each other.

In Jesus name,

Amen