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Melanie Boudreau
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Open-Spigot Living

6/25/2020

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I am in the middle of a bathroom remodel project, the kind of vast under-taking that guts a room and slowly rebuilds it into a place of beauty. I contracted out most of the work, like the shower demolition, re-tiling, and custom wood butcher-block counters. But I have professional-level painting skills. 

For days I have sanded cabinets, primed, and painted. Yesterday I finally finished prepping the walls and ceiling and began the arduous task of painting the room. By the time I am ready to clean my equipment and brushes, typically in the middle of the night, I am utterly exhausted. You know how projects go. 

If a quality paintbrush is not cleaned properly, it dries stiff and hard and becomes useless. It takes time to clean it properly. A thorough cleaning requires copious amounts of running water— a stagnant bucket of water will not do. A painter then uses a dual-sided tool; a metal, sharp-pronged comb on one side, paired with a metal brush similar to a barbecue grill brush on the other side. 

I use the metal brush to repetitively scratch the exterior of the paintbrush’s ferrule stroking down the bristles under a running sink facet until the brush looks clean. But a mere squeeze reveals my brush is still full of paint! The efficient way to rid the brush of the paint is to use the sharp prongs of the metal comb to pierce the brush starting at the heel, splaying the bristles, and raking repetitively through the belly and toe of the brush, all the while under the gushing spigot. This method exposes the interior bristles to the cleansing flow until the brush is squeezed and the emerging water runs clear. Last night while rinsing my brushes, I accidentally pierced my finger with the sharp prongs of the cleaning comb, commingling my blood with the freshly flowing water and fading paint. 

​Can you see where I am going with this description? We can be raked and pierced by life’s assaults all day long and not benefit in the slightest. But God has a divine purpose behind the hardships we face in this life. With the spigot running continuously, He restores us during the transformation process if we position ourselves in Him. 

"I cannot have a new room without enduring the chaos and the cleaning."
I want the fruit of my remodeled lavatory, but I do not look forward to the chaos of dismantling existing structures or to cleaning my brushes. I cannot have a new room without enduring the chaos and the cleaning. Our lives are the same way. I want my life and character to be transformed by God, becoming beautiful. But the project is one of demolition and yielding to a thorough cleaning for me to emerge as hoped. 

My life and yours too require copious amounts of free-flowing Water, running constantly, to cleanse the compacted strands of our life stories  — both the washing of the water of the Word and abiding in the Spirit immersed in the River of Life. A bucket of water captured in a quick morning devotion will just not suffice. The flow of His presence must be constant. The more Water, the better! 

And it takes a good piercing under that flow to expose what is hidden. Prayers to abort the process do not yield a life usable in the hands of the Master Painter. Instead, apply more Water and benefit fully from the raking, embracing God's divine purpose and provision. Visualize the brush with each squeeze of the bristles in your Master's hand! 

Drawing blood last night created in my mind’s eye what really has to happen. It is the piercing of Jesus Christ, His blood, His cleansing flow applied to my life that leaves me restored, supple for use. And the bathroom? It is still a work in progress, but it is coming along beautifully!
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Transitioning

11/7/2015

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PicturePhoto by Hartwig HKD
Daring life changes. Transitioning seasons of life.

I dreamed in the night God was moving us to Massachusetts. Why there of all places?

I went through our home, full of all its comforts and marked what we would need with green dots, and blue dots on memory pieces to pack permanently away in a box. Deciding which few pieces to keep felt brutal. The rest was to be liquidated in an estate sale, most of everything we have collected over the years.

I woke up with the thought of my little Mexican figurine brought to me by my now 26 year old daughter when she was twelve from her first missions trip, resting unceremoniously on a resale shelf at Goodwill, as though this trinket held no precious value beyond the ceramic.


I didn’t like my dream. 

I am doing life in this season with a woman twenty years my elder, and indeed she is walking through transitions. The loss of her husband. A race run well. The sale of her family home. Foresight. Downsizing, and purging. Unfettered. 

She is modeling life well for me. Her passion for God and conversational intimacy with Him gives her the courage to face life, and to face the loss of it, and the loss of what has brought comfort in different seasons. If God doesn’t call us to painful transitions, eventually our family will as simplification becomes imperative. 


Painful does not equate to bad.

My daughter on the spectrum turns twenty-four this month. Transitioning into independence has been difficult for her, hindered by mental health challenges and discrimination in the workforce. It never occurred to me I would be losing both her and her younger brother, a whole seven years younger, flying from the nest in the same year. Yet I suspect this is exactly what will happen.

Success.

Painful success.

Painful because transitions are hard, and can feel like loss even when the result is actually gain, a WIN. 
​

Definitely a win. 

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    About Melanie

    Two of our three children have Tourette's Syndrome as well as a few other co-morbidities, inherited neuropsychiatric disorders. I'm still happily married, love life and want to share encouragement bringing hope, humor and insight into the process of raising children who are different. 

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