Demolishing Walls

The building is progressing at last and the end is in sight but I am getting behind in telling you about some of the early lessons God taught me, and the various things that needed to be done in order to get the house completed.  Because this house is old it had several small rooms and too many walls and so the first thing that needed to be done was to decide which walls had to come down and how to repair the resultant rubble and big holes in floor and ceiling.  It was very, very messy, noisy and scary.  One needed to be sure that one didn't knock down a crucial weight-bearing wall, and one needed courage to take the plunge, be bold, daring and resolute and get those offending walls down. Of course I didn't actually do all the banging and drilling and demolishing, but I had to make the decision to do it.  And now I am so glad I did, as it has made such a difference to the whole feel of the house.  It has let in light and air and given a sense of space that the house didn't have before. Now I have an open plan kitchen, dining room and lounge which is going to be very useful and attractive.  But I realised that one wall, which was at a strange angle and which needed to come down, had been one wall too many.  Now I saw that the lounge actually had no end and stretched all the way down the passage to the bedrooms.  That posed a problem, especially during winter when it would be difficult to warm the room.  So I prayed about it, and thought of a few possible solutions, such as a sliding panel, somehow suspended from the ceiling that could be used to close off the space.  But that did seem rather complicated and would look odd.  Then suddenly I could "see" what to do:  it needed a wooden, cottage-pane sliding door, such as we had had in our previous home in Magoebaskloof.  It would be nice to have a touch of that lovely home in this one and would effectively close off the lounge, without losing the light that demolishing the wall had brought.  So I trotted off to Builders' Warehouse and found exactly the right door - just as I had imagined it.  There was a snag - it had a hefty price tag of R12,000.00 which was really out of my reach.  And one would still need to have glass panes put in so that would put the price up too.  I left it and went on with my shopping.  While driving through the industrial sites, I remembered I needed to go to Build Savers (a second hand building supplier) to find an outside sink.  I think the Lord was prompting me to turn in there, because as I walked into that shop, there in the doorway was "my" door. But with all the panes in, and a price tag of  R4,400.00.  I asked them to keep it and went back to the builder on site and asked him if he could put it in and what he would charge me to do so. He came and looked at it and thought it would work. We also measured the space where it would go and found, to my amazement and joy that the straight line between the two walls where I wanted to put it, measured the exact size of the door I had seen, but with 100mm on each side, thus allowing for a timber support to which to attach the door. So I joyfully went back to the shop and paid for it and they kept it until today when they delivered it onto the site.  Now I am praying they put it in straight so that the slider works nicely.  What an amazing sense of God's provision and guidance!  He is so wonderfully gracious to be interested in the little and big details of what we each are doing in our everyday lives. I'm convinced that if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness then "all these things" will be added unto us.  I have really been asking him each day to guide, bless, protect and provide for the whole project, but also that he would be glorified in it and through it to all those people who are helping to get the house built, and that he would use it for his purposes.  As a result, I have seen really exciting ways in which God has answered prayer, people have perhaps seen a glimpse of his love, and Satan has tried to attack as well.  Maybe I've experienced a little of what Nehemiah went through with some opposition.  But more about that another day, another blog.

Just a parting thought:  Jesus came to break down the dividing walls that keep people apart from him and from each other.  He came to demolish strongholds and bring down every argument that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.  And demolishing and breaking down is messy, dirty, noisy and scary but in the end something better is the result.  Light, air and space is allowed in.