john and dorothy's crazy neighbors.

Got lots to share from a full day with friends and a great evening with MFM!!...but after finally getting the girls to bed at 10:40, I am brain-dead.

Tomorrow.

Just one small thought I've got circling in my mind.

Last night, John, Dorothy, Matt and I were up chatting about the community they live in, and got talking about the music teachers next door.

Dorothy shared that the man that used to live next door had LOVED playing pool.  After living there for a while, he bought this gorgeous new pool table, only to discover it wouldn't fit down the stairs.  So in love with his new purchase, he ended up taking out part of the ceiling/staircase  to get the table in the basement and then patching up the chunks of ceiling taken out for the project.

Eventually, he moved, and couldn't get the pool table back OUT of the basement, and sadly left it behind.

In moved the music teachers, with three pianos.

So in love with their uprights and so disgusted with the pool table, they ended up having a huge portion of the foundation removed and turned into huge bay windows, meanwhile sending the now despised pool table out the wall and making a way to insert their pianos.

So, here's what I'm thinking.

Insane?  Yeah, insane.  To me.  Insane to remove a wall for a pool table or a foundation for a piano.  But to them?  Totally reasonable.

These items represented their greatest passions.  It didn't matter what others thought, or what it cost them.  These things are their life!  Nothing could stop them.

That still small voice has been asking me today: what is my piano?  What am I willing to knock out walls for, spare no expense to keep, focus crazy time and energy on?

What is my pool table?  Is it HIM?

What if?  What if, instead of my own passions, I took on HIS, and what if HIS obsessions became MINE, and what if I, uncaring of what it cost me or how it looked to others, I made sure that NO MATTER WHAT, His heart was priority in my life?

What if--His heart for others--I took on and on and on until I looked like a crazy lady spending all my time and energy and resources loving boldly and freely and nonsensically?

What if--His mandate to die to myself--I took on and on and on until I didn't care a whit about my rights or about others opinions or how I want things or how I've been wronged or what I deserve and only cared about Him and not myself?

What if I didn't care about how my house is--and am ready, at any moment, to chop away at it if He's got something that's JUST not gonna fit "the way I am?"

What if I'm ready to give up "who I am" to be more of "who HE is" even if it means CRAZY?

I want to be John and Dorothy's crazy neighbors.

But not over a pool table, please.  Nor a piano.  Nor a pet nor a hobby nor a sport.  Nor a grudge nor a love nor a right.  Not for a plan or a paycheck or an opinion.

I wanna be John and Dorothy's crazy renovating neighbors in my HEART and LIFE, with an active God holding the blueprints and a "work in progress" sign permanently on my front lawn.  Always being molded, always getting chipped away and restored differently, clinging to nothing but HIM, and all by a God who knows BEST and has SO much to do, if only I'd let Him!

What's your house look like today, and what is HIS vision for it?