Saying Goodbye To The Corners

The time has come when the final fixing and fussing, the returning our former home back to a house for the market is completed.

One day the Man Himself came and said it was time for the final mopping throughout. Then he added "I'd've done it myself, but I knew you'd want to say goodbye to all the corners.

Isn't that a charming thought?  And so unlike the Man to say such a thing!  Still I pondered the cleverly stated truth of it a great deal.  

When the actual mopping took place, it was with light step and happy heart.  Really.  Perhaps because the readying had been such a long, arduous and costly process.  To be done is a good thing.  But it was more than that, much more.  In the empty quiet of the place there was time for reviewing thoughts.  There were so many blessings to recount, rehearse and put in their proper memory boxes.  In the years spent in that home, we experienced the deepest griefs known to humankind and the highest joys ..great loss and great gain.  Death, marriages, births.  

As I mopped the floors, and yes getting into the corners too, I couldn't help but pray for the next occupants, praying that they would know great joy, that they would have grace and strength for what ever their years might hold.

I also remembered, blessed and prayed once more for all the skilled hands (and knees too) that helped us turn the physical house into a home with our stamp on it.  Dear sainted Ed from a former church who came in the beginning, helping us take up yards of bubble gum pink and lime frosty green shag carpet, removing the dark brown and unspeakably ugly faux Mediterranean style cabinetry out of the Victorian bathroom...the daughter and son-in-law who laid down miles of Pergo wood-look flooring and installed the French doors when we were on holiday...the son who hand-crafted the beautiful Swedish style stair railings...the grandson-in-law that painstakingly built a beautiful front door threshold...gallons of pain applied again by daughter & company as well as friends old and new.

Yes, all told, that little cottage has a full and sweet history of love and shared times that become treasured memories.

It was not lost on me that the Psalter portion for the day included "O give thanks unto the Lord for He is gracious; and His mercy endureth forever..offer unto Him the sacrifice of thanksgiving and tell out His works with gladness!"*  and remembering too, that 'sacrifice' is the offering up of something of worth for something of greater value.

So there you have it Dear Reader, This Day the offering up of blessed corners for  future blessings to come.

Shalom 

*Psalm 107:1,22