“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.” Proverbs 3:7

Yesterday I was working on a project that has taken me nearly nine months to do.  I purchased an antique teaching pulpit for my birthday in January.  It was really rough around the edges because someone had covered up the wood with some tacky green paint.  I knew I would need to strip the paint, sand it, clean it and then varnish it before I could move it upstairs to my bedroom but seeing is how I am extremely busy it would be a project that would be done a little at a time.

I first began, at the beginning of summer because the winter is too cold to do these type of projects, stripping the paint.  Little did I know that it would take several attempts to actually get the job done but I was finally able to see the natural wood.  Yesterday I sanded all the roughness out of it, cleaned off the dirt and grit and then put my first coat of varnish on it.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it?  The entire time I was doing this project I wore protective gloves to make sure my hands did not get harmed.  However, when I started cleaning up the brushes I took off my gloves to rinse them.  Not sure where my brain was at the time but it seemed logical that the running water would protect me from any chemical reaction.  I discovered just how wrong I was when my fingers started sticking together and no matter what I used nothing was working.  I tried soap and water and even nail polish remover.  I knew I couldn’t use the obvious paint removers because that would burn my skin so my lovebug looked up a solution on Google for me; Vegetable oil rubbed in and then washed off with soap and water.  Ta-da!  It worked like magic.

This morning while getting ready, I was thinking about what happened yesterday and it reminded me of what the Lord does for us.  We are rough around the edges when we finally give our life over to Him so He does some stripping, cleaning, polishing and varnishing to rid us of our old selves.  We are renovated for a new purpose but we are still sinners of our own free will.  We will make mistakes that might leave us sticky but the good news is He can cleanse us of that too, He is our Vegetable oil.

So for future reference, I am going to try to remember to use His gloves of protection all the time but I am grateful that even when I do make a mistake His vegetable oil is available.