Observe people who are good at their work—
skilled workers are always in demand and admired;
they don’t take a backseat to anyone. – Proverbs 22:29
Wednesday I drove over to Wake Forest to do a check-over on our house in Tyler Run. It’s just a few days before closing and I wanted to make sure there are no surprises. I checked carefully, from crawl-space to attic and everything looks better than good.
I also looked over all the work our handyman has completed, and it is a long list. So here’s a shout out to “Handyman Earl” who has been a literal Godsend during the past few weeks.
In fact, looking at all the improvements Earl has made I wish we had been introduced a few years ago, so Rebekah and I could have enjoyed the fruits of his labor rather than simply gifting it all to the new owners.
Regardless, I am seriously pleased with how the house looks and extremely proud of ourselves for making sure to hand the place over in such good order. Rebekah and I will make one more trip to Wake Forest Friday and then it will be officially goodbye.
So I couldn’t help myself, the moment I arrived back in Tarboro I walked over to the Saint Patrick Street house, pleased to find Eddie already deep into building the small deck behind the kitchen. Like Earl over in Wake Forest, Eddie constantly impresses me with not only his hard work, but the range – and the quality – of his skillset.
Not to be outdone, Tyler from the kitchen cabinet building team was in the house first thing this morning, fine-tuning the installation and measuring to put all the pulls and knobs in place. That’s somewhere around 20 knobs and 25 pulls which makes for a lot of tiny holes!
So again – and it seems that Thursdays are a frequent “House Update” day – we have measurable progress to share.
So What?
The “so what?” of today’s post is essentially my reflection on Handyman Earl taking care of all the work we had been putting off over the past few years.
It makes me realize that it is never the right time to sit back “and say to myself, ‘My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry”’ (Luke 12:13-21)!
The invitation – the challenge – from Jesus is always to live, to constantly appreciate and to take care of our blessings, to be generous and invested in God’s Kingdom, and – above all – to make sure to keep things in perspective.
“This is how it will be” – Jesus concludes – “with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”