blue -part one and two

Part one:  Once upon a time I had a blue office.  It was a really cool office, with tall windows, a square black table-desk, and two beautiful blue walls.  I loved this office.  I loved the color and the space.  I loved to sit at the table, look at the mountains and write and plan and think.  

Then I lost the office.  

After a while I started working at Spartanburg Hospital.  I had a cubicle.  And I was very thankful for the cubicle.  I hung a blue picture on the wall and learned to chaplain and chart and bare my soul.

Fourteen months later I became a hospice chaplain in Buncombe County.  I didn't have an office but I worked from my blue car.  I was so happy to be back in Asheville.  I visited and comforted and prayed with my patients.

I loved my work.  But it was hard and sad.  Sometimes, in the quiet of my bedroom or while driving back roads I would dream about someday having an office again.  With blue walls like the one I had lost.

I found out about the Principal job, interviewed and accepted it within one weekend.  I didn't even think about it coming with an office.  And then I walked into my new space and saw blue walls.  In that moment I felt God's personal, redeeming love with such force that I could hardly breathe.


Part two:  My blue walled office had been inhabited by a string of men.  It was very utilitarian.  There was a huge leather couch that took up half the room.  A third of the room was used for storage of various boxes and supplies. There were five different styles of chairs in one room.  I didn't care.  It had blue walls.

But I did call my friend Angela.  Angela is one of those friends who will sit in your living room and chat with you for hours.  And she will never wince at the dust piling up on the piano, or mention the door knob that has been broken for 36.5 months, or point out the slip-covered chair that once was white.  She is just restful and calm and friendly.  Until you call with a decorating emergency.  And then mild mannered Clark Kent turns into Super Decorating Woman.  You haven't had fun until you've watched dainty Angela move huge pieces of furniture back and forth across a room. Or balance on a chair to hang a picture.  Or sweep the room with her laser eyes before coming up with the perfect solution.    She is my hip fairy god decorator.   She took one look at the office and said "well, the couch has to go." And I knew things were going to get good.

She showed up with bags and furniture.  She brought chairs from her basement.  She found a beautiful table and lamp, a colorful rug, pillows, and a blue mosaic mirror.  Lots of rearranging and artistic perspectives later and my office is bright, welcoming, feminine, beautiful and.... blue.  I still cannot believe that this amazing room is my office!

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis about restoration and rebuilding. I can't read it without tearing up, because it reminds me that what Angela has done for my office, God is doing with my heart.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity