"God's Grace Is Sufficient For You"

My break yesterday was not enough to save my garage. Although several times it got so bad as to include tears. When I had just two weeks left before my inspection deadline, I did some timeline estimating and knew I had until Wednesday to have my doors finished and the chimney chase installed. Instead I found myself cleaning stain off all day and couldn't even finish that, and no the chimney chase is not built. The doors easily took more than twice what they were supposed to, in a period of time that also included an auto accident one block away from the door hardware store (I slid 40 feet going 10 km/hr on a road doubling as a skating rink into a mini-van). And in the end, I still couldn't get them to look good. And so I scrubbed two weeks of work, rags, brushes, stain, money, and heart and couldn't even finish that. It was over; I would have to install them as is, to stare at me and taunt my disgrace with their ugliness, and tease me about how I'd have to spend a pile more money to have someone do it properly in the summer. Sherry called me to see how I was doing and I could barely talk. So I packed it in, my fingers aching and my morale shattered. I came in and showered and came to bed. Sherry remarked that I had a frustrating day, and I still couldn't talk. She said she had a frustrating day too. We could be frustrated together. But she didn't look frustrated. She looked very powerfully willing me to strongly know how much she loved me. She kissed me to underscore this, and said, "God's grace is sufficient for you." I tried to ask what happened to her. She told me about how her back was miserable. But still she looked at me with love. So I went to sleep crying, but it was very different from the crying in the garage.

Today had its share of setbacks. The hardware was wrong on one of the doors, so I had to drive to the NE to replace them, but at least they had the replacements in stock. I realized that the doors needed to have gains chiseled into them for the hardware, and I hadn't allowed time for this, and didn't even have a set of chisels. After I got the chisels, and started working on the doors, I realized the finish of the hinges didn't match the nicer finish of the hardware, and it looked stupid. The hardware came with better parts than some of the default stuff the door came with (and would thus match the hardware), but it wouldn't work because of how the jamb had been cut into for the default parts. While chiseling the gains, the fiberglass chipped away in an ugly fashion.

And none of this really phased me.

God's grace is sufficient for me.

I haven't spent a lot of time mulling over what that means, but I can feel it.

We had friends bring us over dinner and share it with us - yes, really - and one of our friends was telling us about a dream she'd had where their family had a blog recounting how they wasted time. Instead of choosing the two popular approaches of either being a workaholic, or zoning out and doing something mindless, what else can you do with wasted time?

I wasted time failing. It won't be the last. Still, God's grace is sufficient for me.

Bonus
On Sunday, a question was posed: Have you ever asked godly people for criticism?
The background was that godly people are one of five basic ways to hear God speaking - but when do we ask for it?
It resparked a thought that had arisen earlier. I lost a considerable amount of money in an investment that ended up being a ponzi scheme, after reading an investment book (that in fairness, would have frowned on this), having a meeting with three financial advisors (I liked one of them better than the one I went with), and calling three people to ask about their experience with the advisor I did go with (they didn't have anything bad to say). Why? Because Sherry and I prayed about it, and that's where I felt like God was leading. Why didn't I call three people and ask them to pray about it with us? Or even, yes, ask for criticism? Might it have come up that way if I'd been thinking better? Actually Nolan, no, this is a bad idea - you should pray about it some more.
I don't know, but I am open to criticism, and hope I'll remember to start asking for it.