Embracing Spiritual Transformation

I have a habit of falling in love with houses over the internet. We made an offer on our last home before ever seeing it in person. Something deep inside me shifted when I saw the listing appear within our search criteria. We’d found home.

My husband found our current home—also on the internet, of course. I was surprised when he emailed me the listing because it was outside our preselected area. After scrolling through the photos, I wrote back and said, “It looks like my dream home.” I had no doubt about why he felt this home might be worth a bit longer daily commute.

I toured the house on my own the first time. As the realtor and I drove away, he reassured me, saying, “We’ll find your home. Don’t worry.” I sat in silence for a bit before I confessed, “I love that house. I don’t want to because of its location, but I do. I think Ryan should see it. He’s the one who’d be making the drive, so it has to be his dream home too.”

Ryan also fell hard for the home neither of us meant to love. The rest is history. Before we left for the airport, after just three days of house hunting, we’d put an offer on the home, and I was already picking out new paint colors.

Everything about the home was stunning, truly, but the paint colors didn’t reflect our style. Naturally, we wanted to put our stamp on it.

I should probably confess to you that Chip and Jo would not sign off on my design skills. No amount of time spent on Pinterest or watching yet another episode of Property Brothers will give me an eye for design. It’s not in my blood. The best shape for the sofa or the height of the curtains that would look best in a given room? These details escape me. The best I can do is choose paint colors I like.

Also, my body is only moderately functional on its best day. Painting is everything my body despises. It’s reaching and bending, stretching and standing, pushing and abusing my joints. My body rebels after even the shortest investment in this activity, requiring days and days of recovering.

My dear husband is the most helpful of humans, but he has a full-time job, so after he removed the electrical outlets, taped, and put down coverings, I went to work. We started by covering a yellow in the kitchen my son said made it look like it was in a grandma’s house with a green-gray I was in love with. We carried it all the way through the living room. These two small rooms took an entire month—a month of painter’s tape in our living room, a month of no outlet covers, a month of pushing my body far past its limits and still not being finished. This month was called December.

When the painting was complete, however, I could not have been more thrilled with the results or prouder of my effort. I not only loved that the “grandma kitchen” was gone, but that I had partnered in this change even though it cost me greatly.

A dear friend of mine not only loves to paint houses, but she’s so good at it people often offer to pay her to do it. Just before I moved, she was in a terrible motorcycle accident that shattered both her shoulder and her hopes of blessing me by painting my new home. She asked me why I thought her body had thwarted her, leaving her unable to help me when her heart was to serve.

Being familiar with thwarting by my own body, I told her the truth: I didn’t know, but I thought maybe the Lord wanted me to paint the house, even though it cost me a lot. Something about the broad strokes of the roller, transforming the wall as I went, made me feel quite sure of that. Yes, my muscles shook and I fell into bed at night fatigued beyond words, too tired to return to the walls for days, setting off various flares. Still, the transformation was mesmerizing.

After almost a month break, this morning I started painting our dining room a lovely, soft gray. Almost immediately, I noticed I’ve grown quicker, smarter. I no longer create a disaster, spilling paint all over the can when I pour from it. (It’d be fine with me if you didn’t mention to my husband that this was ever a thing.) I clean the brushes with less stress. And this part is remarkable: I enjoy the painting, even some of the annoying, never-ending trim work, because I know how beautiful it will be when it’s all done.

I also couldn’t help but see the parallels between the work, the change, the input, the output, and the partnership of painting and our spiritual lives. We love those big roller-brush strokes that come with ease and instant results as we paint, don’t we? But it takes a while for us to learn to appreciate the more tedious brushwork. We hunch our bodies into uncomfortable positions, wondering if we’re even accomplishing anything.

So often our spiritual journeys feel this way. We’re in an uncomfortable position, doing what we think we should, and we ask ourselves if we’re even changing, if it’s even worth it. When we step back and look at how far we’ve come, however, we’re humbled and amazed that we’ve been invited into this partnership. Yes, it’s hurt. It’s cost us something. But we realize sometimes the Lord wants us to do work even though it will cost us.

Maybe your transformation feels like slow, tedious trim work right now; it’s uncomfortable and seemingly never-ending. One day the ones you love will be mesmerized by your transformation.

Whether it’s painting a room or leaning into the good work God is doing in our lives, change is hard but worthwhile. Let’s get to work. We can rest assured that this God who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it.

Stacey Philpot is wife to Ryan and mother to Hayden, Julie, and Avery. She is a writer, goofball, and avid reader. Stacey has ministered for over 15 years to youth and women in her community in order to equip them to go deeper in Christ. She blogs at aliferepaired.com and chronicallywhole.com.

Photograph © Yoann Siloine, used with permission