I've spent the past two weeks working on my first "professional" painting job at a church in the area. The pastor saw a verse that I painted at a friends house several years ago, and he also happens to spend some time during the school day at the school where Mark teaches, so he asked Mark if I'd be interested in doing one at their church. Without really being sure what I was getting myself into, I said I'd do it. Let's just say, nothing is as easy as it sounds over the phone...
Walls are bigger and higher than you remember them to be from your first visit. I went back in the Fall to check out the church and talk about what they wanted done. I showed them a few of the verses I had done here at the house. It didn't look too overwhelming at the time. By January, I had forgotten the sheer size of the space they wanted me to fill. This also made it a bit difficult to think about the layout of the verse ahead of time. Next time I will take a camera to capture my "blank canvas".
I'm still afraid of heights. I was totally stressed out up there.
It took a good hour before I felt like I could breathe easily up on that scaffold. My feet were sore the rest of the day and into the next from bracing myself the first day I worked on it.
Climbing scaffolding is a great workout. It will also leave your shins and knees very bruised if you do it the "wimpy" way {did I mention I'm afraid of heights?}. My dad has worked construction all of his adult life. He's climbed a scaffold or 10,000 over his career, I'm sure. I now know how he could kick my butt in a race without "training". He trained all day long. I've decided I will not be doing any job like this over the summer...during shorts (and Ellie's wedding) season...my legs are a mess!
Proofread twice, paint once. My dad {the construction worker} has a saying he uses quite often..."Measure twice. Cut once." I found myself adapting {stealing} it after this experience. The church administration decided on Galatians 5:22-23...Fruits of the Spirit....in the NLT version. This is a verse I'm very familiar with, BUT...I don't have it memorized {Such is not the case anymore}. I can usually list off five or six of the fruits, then draw a blank on the others. Anyway, as we were making plans for when I would come out to the church to get started I told them I had an idea for a layout and I'd type up the verse in a couple fonts and let them choose which one they liked. Of course, I typed it up while distracted by multiple things {because that is the story of my life} and then sent it off in an email. She texted back to say I left out the word "of"...easy fix...on we go. I spent about 7 hours over two days chalking in the verse and then painting. I finished on Saturday afternoon and was, overall, really happy with how it turned out. The lady that had helped with setting things up came and checked it out before I left...loved it...was excited for everyone to see it the next morning. I told her I'd come back on Tuesday to touch up a couple letters and wash off the chalk lines. Then...on Sunday evening...I got a phone call from her. Seems that a couple people had pointed out that I left out the word "goodness". Goodness. I left out a whole stinkin' fruit of the spirit!! I. Was. Mortified. This leads into my next two lessons, though...
From the moment I got the call, he assured me it would be fine. I didn't believe him at first. I was a mess that night...could not take my mind off of that mistake....and how in the world I was going to fix it. {Think: dark charcoal paint on a white wall and everything already centered just right.} Mark was sure he could cover it up. So he gathered some supplies and tools and went over after school on Monday since it's just a few minutes away. He tried sanding. It didn't work so well. He primed. He waited {bored out of his mind}. He primed again. He waited. He found a fan. He waited. He painted. He waited a bit and finally left, after feeling sure he had covered it up well enough that I could fix it. After a full day of teaching, he put in another 4+ hours. Because he loves me. Because he supports me. Because he defends me. Man. I. Love. Him.
My God's got me covered. I spent Sunday evening and much of Monday morning consumed by the thought that Mark was not going to be able to cover it up. That the people at the church {especially the ones who I was told were not even supportive of the verse going up in the first place}were probably just laughing at how I could have possibly left out an entire significant word....why in the world would I have not double checked before painting? I was able to finally just give it up {after much prayer} and let the Lord do his thing. It turned out that a couple of kids from the youth group were the ones who noticed it first....and there were some in the church who didn't even notice {or hear others noticing} at all. Mark's paint job covered everything up really well. There was only one spot that I could even tell that he had done anything. I only had to re-do one line...everything lined up beautifully....to cover up the one spot I just mentioned. There were probably people in the service this past Sunday who didn't even notice that it was any different than the previous week. He took care of every detail as usual. Even though this was not a world changing/life impacting disaster, He still had me covered.
