When I was a teenager and living with my parents in Lilburn, Georgia, my room was in the basement. On the other side of one of my walls was my father’s workshop. He was pretty skilled at handyman stuff and was frequently in there working. Sometimes, I was not allowed to go in there. He might have been assembling Christmas presents or working on something that he didn’t want his kids to mess up, but there were times when we were prohibited from being in the room while he accomplished his work. I remember on occasion sleeping late in bed on a Saturday morning and hearing him come down the stairs, open the door to his workshop, and engage in some project. There would be the sound of the metal toolbox being slid across the rough wood of his wall-to-wall work tables. There was drilling, hammering, and the metallic slide of his measuring tape going in and out of its housing. Sawing was frequently heard and then my father would eventually go back up stairs as he shut the door to his workshop. Dad was usually a focused man with a plan in motion. I rarely knew what he was doing in that workshop until his finished product was presented for us to see. Usually I found myself thinking,
“I would not have guessed that this was what dad was working on all this time.” I knew he was up to something in those days, but I only heard the sounds and never saw the project until he was ready to reveal it.
My Heavenly Father has a workshop. I find myself these days being increasingly aware that He is doing something of significance. I sense His tools being employed, His patience at the workbench, His chiseling, hammering, measuring, and sanding. I must confess that I have not been welcomed into the shop to observe His current project(s). He’s closed the door and left me on the other side of the wall even as my curiosity sometimes turns to frustration as I’d really like to know what’s going on. I don’t think He wants me watching right now because He knows I’ll try to help Him out. He’s completing His work without me on this one. His denials sting just a little but…He’s my Father and He knows what He is doing. Sometimes His children get in the way and, when the project is important, it is best that they not be in the workshop until He is finished lest they become confused mid-way through the process. He will present His work to His family when it is complete and we will then be able to say, “I would never have guessed that it was this that You had been working on. No wonder you didn’t request my help. There was nothing I could have added. Thank You, Father, for shutting the door and getting Your work done. It’s beautiful.”
I was picturing my Dad in his basement workshop. It really was just a dug out crawl space. Dad wired it and built some beautiful furniture in this tiny room.
We have some of the pieces to this day.
Earlier when a very small child we lived on a farm and he had a workshop in
one corner of the ‘machine shed’. If I had a toy that was broken or the paint was
wearing off, all I had to do was leave it on the workbench, not saying a word. He
(in spare time) would do the repair work on the item and just leave it there. A few days later I wandered out and sure enough I found the repaired toy waiting for me to pick it up. What a loving Dad. Sometimes we are leaving things to our Lord…not always asking, but just hoping he would do what he thought was best. (He always knew my heart.) Like my Daddy, my Lord is in the business of caring for me and my family. He likes it better if I verbally ask however. Your blog this morning renewed a memory that I had forgotten until I read your heart (blog).
Wait….MY bedroom was in the basement. Oh yeah… I moved out because I wouldn’t do the very thing you are stating here.
The word “wait” was foreign to me for decades. And my insistence on “NOW!” left a tornado path in my life and in the lives of everyone who loved me.
I wait and stay out of the workshop much better these days.
Thank you for this memory and its lesson.
I never realized that you heard all that racket, Jeff! But I really like the way you used those memories here. I just wish I had kept this picture in mind a few years back when God had the door locked, double-locked and nailed shut regarding what He was working on in my case. Perhaps I would have gratefully bowed to His handiwork instead of doubting and questioning Him so.