Today is Easter and I am looking out the window of my home office watching cars pull in and out of the cove across the street. Families are gathering for church and dinner, kids are opening their baskets of goodies, the weather has a nip in the air for afternoon egg hunts. If the cars were older, the clothing was more vintage, the hairdos were bit more formal and tailored, this could be 50 years ago…nothing much has changed since I was a child. The traditions and trappings have remained intact over the years, but I have certainly come through many changes.
In the business I am in there are so many wonderful twists and turns, fun things and memory-creating moments. I love seeing people come in and find some of the beloved childhood items that were in their homes growing up. A lamp reminds a young person of their grandmother’s home, musty with peeling flocked wallpaper and braided rugs over the scuffed hardwood floors. A man picks up a bag of marbles and his eyes fix on them as he remembers many days spent kneeling in the dust and dirt, hovering over a circled string on the ground, trying to shoot best to win that prized aggie. I watch as an old woman picks up an antique handkerchief and holds it softly to her nostrils and breathes in, hoping to smell the light scent of lavender that had pervaded her own mother’s lace and trims when she was but a tiny girl.
My favorite customers are those who wander in, find treasures like these, and give them new life through a repurpose or redesign. Most often it happens with a piece of furniture, but I have witnessed the birth of an entirely new heirloom from old door hardware, wooden windows, a scrap of fabric tablecloth or a wooden barrel or box. All of these have come through countless hands, been in more than one home oftentimes, and now landed in a place where others can purchase them and give them a new purpose and a new life.
As a small child of 7, I met Jesus on a hot August day the last service of a tent revival in my church. I was just a little kid, but I knew there was something more to the life I was living, and so did the Lord. He knew I needed a makeover and I am so grateful He was willing to give me a new life. Many years and much water has gone under the bridge and my life has not always been what He intended it to be. But with great patience and a steady hand, He continued to sand off the edges, add a bit of color here and there, and spent hours and days and years waxing a beautiful patina into my life as I plundered through the milestones of my journey. And somehow, He is still working….and I am still grateful.
I think about my own ultimate repurpose when I see others take pieces and bring a new glorious life to them. I am humbled and continue to see the beauty possible in this old piece of worn out furniture I call my life. And I look forward to see the purposing again of my life in this, the latter half. There is always something amazing in making the old new again.
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