The Gospel According to HGTV

I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted!

In the past three weeks I have flipped houses, salvaged barn doors, purchased real estate in Curacao, and refurbished a burned-out Victorian house in Minnesota. Not to mention perfecting the poached egg, learning everything I didn't know that I needed to know about food trucks across the country, and challenging Bobby Flay in Iron Chef America. I have saved restaurants from certain closure and hung on until the final round of Chopped! I feel so...empowered!

It is now three weeks and one day since my foot surgery. The first week was a blur. The second week was spent getting used to navigating the walker and adjusting to life on my blue-striped island in the family room. But the third week, well now that has been spent visiting with friends, dining on their food, (I am so blessed that I have friends who can cook, I mean these ladies can COOK!) and surfing the web and the networks.

Since most daytime tv is created, I am sure, for people waiting to check in with their parole officer, I have relied mostly on silence. Honestly, that's my favorite sound. I am a HUGE "Be still and know" (Psalm 46:10) fan. I love the peace that silence brings. The clarity that waits between ticks of the clock and the slow, low melody of the wind chimes on the back porch. God speaks volumes to me during these times and I covet them when I am doing my usual "running around." But sometimes the silence is a little too loud. Especially when your brain needs to be distracted from thinking about your foot. So enter channel 229 on your DirecTv remote and hallelujah! Background noise that you can almost always glance up at and not be repulsed!

Between HGTV, diy, and the Food, and Cooking channels, I have no loss for projects, ideas, and inspiration. I am ready to hit the flea markets for old, beat-up bookcases and stop by Home Depot on the way home for a can of miracle spray paint. While I'm out I'll go by the store for a list of mystery ingredients and come home and prepare the BEST MEAL EVER. And as for one of those "fixer-uppers" I pass on the way- I'm going to gut it, restore all the woodwork to its former glory, and rent it for a ridiculous sum of money to a family that can't decide whether to Love it or List It. Why? Because these people whom I do not know have told me that I can!

After watching these shows I am firmly convinced that, if they can do it, I can do it. After all, we are all human, right? We own power tools. We have access to Home Depot and Lowes. I own both sharp knives and a whisk. Why can't I conquer the afternoon with a few projects and dinner. Served on trendy plates. I watch, I take notes, I nod in approval. Then I get up, employ my walker into the kitchen, and see myself in the reflection of the mirror in my still unfinished bathroom. Oh yeah. I'm still me. I still can't decide on the light fixture I want. After two years.

If I lived on one of these shows I'd hop into my beat-up pickup truck and go to the local salvage store and get one for $35 that is old and has character and fair wiring. I'd get home and know which breaker to shut off and get it all spiffy-looking and hang it and be pleased. But I don't live on a show, I live in the real world. And so do we all. They make it look so easy.

Of course, my blog wouldn't be my blog without tying this in to my Christian walk. My faith. My life. So I go the step further and wonder if I make life look too easy for my non-Christian friends. Do I make it look like, because I believe and know that I will join my Savior in heaven one day and that my sins are forgiven and that I have the power of the Holy Spirit living in me, that my life is as easy as a crème brulee prepared in a convection oven in Gordon Ramsay's kitchen?

Was my salvation experience like flipping a house? Out with the old, in with the new. My value increased just because my self decreased? Easy as that? Have I made being a follower of the only One sent to live a sinless life, die on a cross in substitution for my sins, rise from the dead, appear to multitudes, and ascend into heaven and promise to return to us to join with us for eternity--have I made that sound too easy? Have I made it look too easy?

Oh- have I been guilty of falsely inspiring people and leading them to believe that life would be a bed of roses and that they would never need to be weeded, would never thirst, and would never wither?

I want to live life to the fullest, but I also want to be real. I want to show that I am weak and vulnerable and subject to all of the things that everyone else is subject to and I do not have all the answers; I just have one answer and that is Jesus. (John 14:6)

Please, Lord, let my flaws be examples of your love and forgiveness. Let people see the imperfections in me like the ones in the old wood in the Victorian home. And let me lead them to the only One Who can fully restore, fully rehabilitate, and always make new. And let us all know the difference between reality tv and reality.