March 7 – “Details”

I got to spend some time with the plumber and carpenter working at the church today.  When I had to leave they had built a little platform with two showers on it.  The water was hooked up and they were working on the second drain to keep it from leaking.  They had just attached one of the on demand heaters, so I'm not sure if the water is hot or not.  Details.   Most of the morning I was up on my roof again.  Chris was cleaning the church, so I stayed to help where I could.  I decided yesterday that my best bet was to choose the job no one else wanted to do and stick with that.  Yesterday that meant I spent the entire time pulling out nails.  At least that was something I was experienced at.  We pulled out about a million after we tore out our sheetrock.  Today I handed shingles to the more experienced guys as they did the ridges and attached the sides together.  We went all the way around the roof in a circle and had to make sure the shingles matched up when we put them together.  In my "vast" experience with roofing I never had to do any of the stuff I watched today.  All I ever did was scrape off rocks and drive a truck.  I'm very impressed with how many details are involved in making a roof look good and, well, keep out water.    We did have one crisis at the house.  We ran out of shingles.  Twice.  And the second time there were no more of our kind of shingle left in Galveston.  The nearest place that had some was a McCoy's in Rosenberg – two hours away.  I was ruing my lack of attention to detail.  I just knew I would be the one to have to get this thing finished.  Then I realized that a few of the guys from Brownwood had already left … for Rosenberg.  They were going to get the shingles and planned to finish when they got back.  (Read here, Large sigh of relief).  While they were gone the teenagers talked someone into taking them to the beach so they could try out the boogie boards they found in our back yard.  I left for the church to help Chris finish cleaning the church.  By the time I got back to the house (after a wedding I led at 5:30), it was dark and the ones who were staying another night had gone out to eat somewhere.  I couldn't tell if the roof was finished or not.  Can't wait until tomorrow.   I also can't wait to see what all the electricians did.  They showed up in force.  There were about six of them pulling more wire.  The regular electric wire they started with yesterday was yellow.  You know, reminds you of gold, of good things, like God wants for us to have.  Today they pulled out some black wire that was for the air conditioner.  Hmm.  Black reminds you of the sin that separates you from God and keeps you from having the good life and relationship with him that he wants.  One of the teenagers here helping with the roof walked by as I was gazing at wore.  He was majorly sunburned.  Red as a beet.  Like blood.  Like Jesus shed to take care of our sin problem.  The next roll of wire they broke out was white.  I think they said that one was for the cable television.  White.  Clean.  Like us when Jesus washes away our sin.  The last roll of wire was blue.  They said that one was for the telephone wires.  Blue is he color of water.  The color of baptism.  The ultimate symbol of our obedience to Jesus, of turning our life over to him completely.  The myriad of color was more than I could handle, so I went back outside where I could rest my weary eyes on the green weeds in our yard.  Green.  The color of growing things.  Like we are when we become believers.  Growing more like Jesus.    John 3:16-17 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,  that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."   Father, thank you for that glaringly colorful reminder of the gospel.  Amen.