Inspection Day

Inspectors will arrive soon to look this house over from the top of our drafty attic to the bottom of the basement drain. All the flaws this house has accumulated over its 90+ year lifetime will soon be exposed. We've discovered most of these flaws during our years of living here, but I'm sure there are a few we haven't become aware of...yet.

I don't really want anyone poking and peering all throughout this wonderful space I call home. Whatever the issues are here, we have come to accept them and even overlook most of them. I'm nervous that an outsider might find these familiar problems are more than "just the way it is," and label them as something that can be fixed.

We say that a lot around here as if it ends the discussion and elimiates a need for change. "That's just the way I am," Asher says when he tells me he doesn't like babies. "That's just the way I am," I inform Walter when I explain why my critical words tumbled out of my unguarded mouth - once again.

Some of the problems in our house have even become endearing. I smile at the frost on the clothes in my closet. We sigh over the bathtub handle that won't stay on straight. And we chuckle as we realize the chipmunks have added another tunnel in their elaborate labryinth under our backyard.

The negative patterns of family interactions and personal flaws also become comfortable. I know many of them are there, but its easiest just to chalk those things up to "that's just the way it is."

But I'm guessing the inspector today will tell us and the buyer will request for this not to be the way that it is. There are fixes for many of the issues in this house. Most of them would be expensive or require a lot of time and manual labor. But problems don't have to remain problems.

It doesn't sound fun or easy, but there are also fixes for the negative issues...ok I'll be blunt, the sins...in my life. Those sins don't have to be "just the way it is."

Jesus didn't die for me to be comfortable holding on to the very things he experienced agony for just because they are costly or difficult to fix. And I don't want my only explanation to Him for why I didn't take advantage of His life changing power to be "that's just the way I am."

It's Inspection Day and "that's just the way it is" won't be explanation enough.