Fixer-uppers

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

—2 Corinthians 12:9

When we moved to Grand Rapids, we bought an English Tudor house built in 1920. It had arched doorways and hardwood floors and funny little corners and built-in cabinets. I thought of myself as an old-house person, someone who appreciates character over perfection. We moved in and started fixing it up, painting, and putting in new outlets and fixtures.

Then I went over to a friend’s house—a new house. I was overcome with jealousy, not because her house was fancy or big, but because the toilets didn’t run, and none of the windows were painted shut, and none of the doorknobs got stuck.

When I got home, all I could see were the fixer-upper things that were not yet fixed up. Uneven floors. Cracked tiles. Squeaky drawers. Clanking radiators. Bats. Mice. The funny smell in the basement.

On my worst days, I start to believe that God is a new-house God. That everything has to work just right. That I need to be completely fixed up. But a lot of the people God uses to do amazing things don’t have it all together. A lot of the best stories in the Bible, where God does sacred, magical things through people, have characters with shady pasts. Serious fixer-uppers.