The house where I live has textured popcorn ceiling stuff that is great to look at for about the first 10 minutes that you own the home, but becomes a huge pain when it comes to cleaning and dusting. And after the house has been around for about 40 years…it becomes an even bigger pain when it comes painting.
For the past few years there have been two little spots where the mud from the sheetrock has dried and has caused cracks in the ceiling. Not that the ceiling is in danger of collapsing, just that the mud is old and has shrunk over time. No one has ever noticed them but me, but I saw them every time I looked at the end of the room. So I bought some stuff that is sprayed on and is supposed to cover up any cracks or holes on textured ceilings that might have accumulated over years, no paint necessary. (think about swag lamps…) After spraying the stuff on the cracks, I waited patiently for the paint to dry and the cracks to disappear. I waited for about 3 months. The paint dried but the cracks didn’t disappear. Instead, they were now stained a slight yellowish color.
So I went to the local home fix-it store and bought a can of “ceiling white paint”. After discussing with the guy behind the counter what I needed to do, he assured me that I could just take a brush and dob the paint on the yellow streaks and it would blend right in…maybe about a 10 minute project.
Oh, if it were only that easy.
First, the cracks are vertical on the gable end of the room that has a very tall vaulted ceiling. The only way to reach to the cracks is to either climb onto the top of the tv armoire, or bring in the 10 foot ladder. I did both. I brought in the ladder and climbed way high, and then figured that I could just scoot over on to the tv armoire and have a safer place to perch than the shaky ladder. At least it felt a lot more secure than the ladder, but still it was a kind of skinny perch and had with no room to turn around.
Second, anyone who knows me knows that it is NOT a good thing to put anything connected with paint – brush, roller, or can — any where near me. I have no coordination to keep the paint in the pan and have the roller on the tray and try to make it all get on the wall (instead of on me). I am glad to have worn a tye-dyed shirt today. It looks like it’s supposed to be splattered. And I’m also thankful to have naturally highlighted hair today…the ceiling white paint blends right in.
Third, once I got the two little streaks covered up, I discoverd that there is ceiling white paint and then there is ceiling white paint. In other words, the paint didn’t match. I now had two roller-wide strips of a grayish white against the background of an 18 foot wall of a very whitish white. Actually in the middle of an 18 foot wall of very whitish white. So I added another roller-width of paint, trying to blend the two stripes together, thinking that if I could just merge the grayish stripes then no one would notice the very whitish wall. That just didn’t work. The more I painted, the grayer the new stuff was and the whiter the old became. And so…I ended up painting the entire wall. But the paint has covered up the where the streaks had been and I’m happy to not see them any more.
And then I realized that one wall is connected to another, and so I ended up having to paint all four sides of the whole ceiling so that it would all match. I discovered that the safety of the tv armoire was only good for one end of the room. The rest of the room had to be done while perched on the very tall ladder. I had lots of exercise from going up and down the ladder while reloading the paint roller and brush…and lots of cleanup from the drips!
The job is done. It may not be done well, but it is done.
How many times have you had a little situation that you tried to patch up, only to find that your patch didn’t match? (oh, I must be smelling paint fumes to come up with that one). I mean, you try to fix something yourself, and you just make a bigger mess than before you started. One patch makes for a bigger mess, and on it goes until you end up having to re-do the whole thing, whatever it is?
Life is sometimes like that. Sometimes you mess up, you blow it with a little sin, and then you think you can cover it up and that doesn’t work, and then it all just snowballs on you and you end up with a big fat mess. You tell one little lie, and then you have to cover it up with another that is a bit bigger than the first, and on it goes until you can’t tell what the truth was. Your paint job just doesn’t do the trick of covering up the stains of the sins. It’s like you need to be completely covered over. And you can be, but not on your own.
And another little secret…you’re not the only person who has ever flubbed up. ALL of us have. Some just more than others. Some folks know and admit that they’ve messed up…some are sadly mistaken to think that they have no flaws.
But here’s the deal…there’s going to come a time when you reach the point of realizing that you can’t fix your messes on your own and that there’s no way you can hide the wrongs you done. But there is a way to start over, to clean up, and that way is through Jesus Christ. He will take all the messes that you’ve made, whether they are tiny and barely noticable to anyone but you or whether they are huge and the whole world knows all about every rotten thing you’ve ever done, and through His love and grace and forgiveness, give you a new start. The paint of HIS blood will cover the darkest stain you can possibly have. All you have to do is ask. Ask Him for forgiveness, ask Him to help you get started over, ask Him to show you the way. He’s there waiting, just like He was there for me.
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD.“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18 Click here for NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD, performed by Guy Pendrod, (uploaded to YouTube by kumlasak).
HONEY, YOU DID GOOD!!!!!