I walked into my kitchen at 230am today to make tea and see if i'd ever become sleepy again. I looked at the way the light played on the new paint on the walls. it's a semi-gloss and it shows all the imperfections in the drywall. I Love The Imperfections because they are all a standing symbol that our kitchen isn't put in by skilled craftsmen, but by 20 and 30 something kids who love Lew and Judy and the boys because of Jesus!

spots and spills of paint are standing symbols. I love them.

I'm serious.

I know you've all seen me PISSED before because of the lifestyle we live here. I know you've seen me BUMMED out because of the way things have gone down in the past. And it still bumms me if you're 25+ years old and you lean back in the chairs and they get loose and break. It bums me out if you lean full-force on the middle of the 4-leaf table that was given to us all by folks who love and worked on it with their own hands...and i watch that table bend under your thoughtless weight and worry for it's untimely demise... yeah, I'm that guy...

but these imperfections and bumps and splats in the kitchen of this house... these are quite the opposite. they are the texture of faith working out in love. You guys are healing us by embedding your jouney's history in ours, on earth. Heaven will show us later what is being proclaimed and transferred in these simple acts of imperfect serving.

the slightly lumpy drywall will soon be covered with cabinets and shelves, and dressed with mouldings and lighting. We won't see it anymore. Maybe someday a rich person will buy this house and move in and remodel and think, "These people were idiots! They didn't do it 'right'."

oh no. yes you did. yes you did. i wake up crying for joy because you were here on saturday...

...and something in me is put to rest... not so desperately lonely to be there with Jesus... because I saw him here with me. in you.