Chips and Dings

My brother has been remodeling his house. They bought it a few months ago. It’s nice, but dated so they have been making some changes. One of the first things they did was re-do the kitchen.
A couple of days ago, the men were here to install the new counter top in the kitchen. The top is made of genuine granite, and is a very nice addition to the home. The men spent some time with the installation, to be certain that everything was as it should be.
Yesterday, it was time to hook up the faucet and drains for the kitchen sink. I went ahead and started that job yesterday afternoon. Things weren’t going well, and I had to make several trips to the local hardware store for parts. You know how that goes…it seems that a job that should take an hour or so ends up taking three or four hours and a lot more trouble than it should.
While working with the faucet, a wrench accidently hit against the edge of the top where the sink hole was cut. The resulting chip in the granite was the first mar in an otherwise great looking counter top.
I don’t have to tell you that I was devastated by the slip. I know this wasn’t an inexpensive top, and less than 24 hours after installation, it has an imperfection due to something I had done. I went ahead and worked on the project, and after my brother came home, we finished it up.
I thought later in the evening about that chip. Here was a slab of granite rock…the stuff that mountains are made of, heavy, strong, and stout…beautifully cut and worked into a functional piece for a home, that was chipped because of a small hand wrench hitting it. The strike wasn’t hard, but apparently was at just the right angle and such that a chip ensued. I had inadvertently, it seems, found the Achilles heel of the top.
Although I’m sure they were disappointed, my brother and his wife took the news well. We’re still staying with them, and they’re still talking to us. And we think that the men may well be able to repair the chip when they come out to drill a couple of holes in the top in the next few days. They probably won’t be able to make it disappear, but can make it look much better.
Try as we might, the impressive facades we put up in our own lives sometimes melt away, and the Achilles heel of our lives is exposed and exploited by something seemingly small and insignificant. We all have our weak spots, and we all struggle daily with those small wrenches that seem to eternally chip away at our facades. The great thing about being a Christian, though, is that even though the wrench may create the chips, the Lord of the universe can not only repair me, but can make me “justified”…just-as-if-I’d never been chipped.
Who ever heard of a God like that!!