Furry Fridges and Falling Ceilings

Learning to See and Fix the Hidden Problems in Our Lives

If misfortune were a person, I imagine it lurking around our house and peeking in the windows, waiting for us to go on vacation. One year, misfortune caused heavy rains and lightning to knock out power to our house a few hours before flying to Florida. Rainwater backed up into our home, and our pump was inoperable. I scooped water and filled buckets. Buckets soon became trash cans. Trash cans soon became bowls (we didn’t have anything bigger than trash cans). I’m not sure if there are different types of sweat, but physical activity sweat became nervous sweat as we were down to our last couple of bowls. As I reached for another seemingly futile scoop, misfortune vacated the premises, and electricity brought our house (and the all-important pump) back to life! After dumping every water receptacle, we rushed out the door and had a great vacation!

During another vacation, misfortune struck the house with lightning. No, it wasn’t anything drastic. Our house did not burn down. But when we opened our refrigerator, it was furry green. Yes, I said furry. Misfortune transformed food items into unrecognizable little monsters and summoned strange odors from the crypt. The last thing you want to do when driving home straight from Florida is contend with misfortune’s mess.

Misfortune strikes in threes, however. When walking into our house from a week-long vacation, no doubt after an exhausting driving home, a sizable portion of our kitchen ceiling was on the floor. Upon investigation, a second-floor toilet had malfunctioned, causing water to soften the ceiling, leaving a sizable hole. We cleaned up the mess, addressed water issues, and went to bed. Misfortune had a good laugh with that one. 

Because.

We didn’t immediately fix the ceiling. It wasn’t negligence, per se. Jenny had a plan for the kitchen because Jenny always has a plan. But visitors over the next many months didn’t know our plans. We just had a hole in our ceiling. A hole we had grown accustomed to. A hole no one in our family recognized anymore. A hole that had been there for so long we no longer saw it. I will write that line again for it to sink in- It had been there for so long we no longer saw it. While our holey kitchen ceiling was glaringly apparent, hyper-obvious to anyone and everyone who visited our house when they walked into the kitchen, we couldn’t see it. 

This reflection could be about how to handle misfortune, the merits of not buying a house built in 1969, or the need for timely home maintenance. However, a more fitting insight is how we can often move about in life, live from day to day, and not see things in our lives that are glaringly obvious to others. These blind spots, like our kitchen ceiling, become part of the background, unnoticed and unaddressed until someone else points them out. While we have talked in the past about having trustworthy people whom we allow to speak truth into our lives, the point here is to become individuals who are becoming increasingly self-aware, people who can introspect, take inventory, and metaphorically see our own hole in the ceiling. In doing so, we can proactively address our blind spots and improve our lives rather than waiting for misfortune to force us to confront them. 

Let’s continue this conversation next week.

Question

What are the holes in the ceiling of my life that I have grown accustomed to and no longer notice, and how can I begin to address them?

Peace,

Brandon