Maintenance List

A few days ago I called the office at my apartment complex asking if they could fix a few things.  At first I only mentioned the most needed items, a shower faucet that isn’t working and a sink that is stopped up.  But as I listed the items, the girl working said “what else”?  I listed item after item as she continued stating those two little words.  Her point to me was that if they could fix things while they were still just little inconveniences then they would not turn into major cost causing problems.

            Yesterday I came in from work and the four items that I described over the phone only days before were now realities.  It was so nice to see them fixed.  I could easily slide my screen door to my porch.  My refridgerator now opened the way you would expect it to.  My sink was fully drained and didn’t stop up, and I expect that my number one problem of a shower faucet that doesn’t work is also fixed.  It is so nice for these little things that I had gotten use to in my everyday life to no longer be an issue.

            Sometimes our lives are the same as my maintenance man list.  We have these “issues” that we have become accustomed to and we learn to live with them every day because it is easier than taking the time to look into them further and getting them fixed.  Healing is a process. A friend of mine has stated that true healing is like pealing away the layers of an onion.  With each layer you peel, you have yet another new layer to deal with.  At times, that alone makes you not want to start the process.  There have been so many times that I have thought, why am I even bothering?  Isn’t it for the best just to have this calloused unhurtable heart? 

            I had a conversation with someone the other night that really helped me see the value of working through these layers though.  I realized in my conversation with him that I really had experienced some divine healing.  Those that troubled with the same issues that I always had were still in a place of hurt and cycled brokenness where as I was finding myself in a whole new realm of living.  It was hard to make those decisions to heal and to work through it, but in the end it really has paid off.  I’m finally fully grateful that I went through the process.  Just like coming home and finding the list of maintenance items fixed, I have found a life that too can be fixed and in many ways has been.