We we had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into! Our front door is a nice quality solid cherry wood with decorative glass in the middle, but the outside is all weather warped and looked pretty bad. We thought of sanding and restaining it, but after out neighbors painted their door a cheery bright red, we decided color was the way to go! We toyed with the idea of red, yellow, orange, green and blue and got samples for each color family, easily weeding out most colors. We eventually landed on the "teal" color family and I hit up Menards, Home Depot, Hirschfields, and Sherwin-Williams to get every sample of that color they had. I spent many hours cutting and taping the little paint squares into bigger square and taped those to the door, where they sat for a week while I deliberated on the colors. I posted a picture on Facebook asking for opinions as I just couldn't make up my mind! This past Saturday was the day we had free to start painting, so I had to make a choice and picked color #1 - Joyful Tears (foreshadowing, perhaps?!).
This is the only "before" photo I have of the door - as you can kind of see, worn looking wood and mismatched handle and lock - in lovely 80's brass!
We took a two day approach with Tyge sanding, wood putty-ing deep scratches, and priming the door on Saturday before our evening plans, then finishing up with the 3-4 coats of paint on Sunday after church.
My task was to ORB (oil rub bronze spray paint) the brass door handle and deadbolt, the storm door handles, the adjacent garage door handle and deadbolt, and the doorbell. I had the easy job, right? Wrong. As detailed oriented as I am, you'd think I would make a fantastic spray painter but I do not. I don't have the patience for several thin, even coats so sprayed it at close range and covered the things. They were globby and drippy, and dried even worse. Seriously, it was bad (in my eyes at the time anyway). So not only were the knobs we took off horribly done, but the once we left on were even worse! Left ON, you say? Yes, because they were too hard to take off, we left the storm door handles and garage door knobs on the doors and I just taped around them. BIG mistake. The spray paint leaked through the tape and surrounding paper, so I was left with spots of paint to clean up with mineral spirits and a Q-tip, which didn't quite do the trick.
Nice.
Tyge did SUCH a good job on the door itself that I was embarrassed to ruin it with my horrible handles. He didn't care in the least and never once made a crack about the job I did or made me feel bad. However, I felt so stupid and let that self pity affect my mood and way I acted that day. I let it get to me that the job I did wasn't "perfect" and let my anger and frustration seep out into the way I treated even Tyge. I was short, flustered, snippy, and all around not-so-nice. The worst part is, I didn't fully even realize I was being this was until Monday night, when Tyge and I were reading from the book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs for one of our couples Bible Studies.
I was reading aloud for the two us us from Chapter 2, aptly title "To Communicate, Decipher the Code", and there were some great points in there. The whole premise of the book is how husbands are biblically commanded to LOVE their wives, and wives are biblically commanded to RESPECT their husbands, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:33, "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
My jaw dropped, my voice got a bit shaky, and I had a gigantic AHA! moment when I came to page 36. Emerson explains that God tells the husband he must love (agape) his wife unconditionally and she must respect him, regardless of if he is loving to her. However through his study of the verse over the years, he came to realize that the Lord never commands the wife to agape love her husband - this is because the Lord created a woman to love. He created her to nurture, be sensitive, loving, and compassionate, all as part of her nature. Basically, God designed the woman to love, so has no need to command her to agape love her husband.
Next Emerson skips to Titus 2:4 which tells the older women to "urge the younger women to love their husbands and children", but not in an agape way. In Titus he uses the Greek word phileo, which means a human, brotherly kind of love. His point is, a young wife is created to agape love her husband and children - she is created to never stop unconditionally loving them. (Here's where my AHA! moment came) However, Emerson decodes this verse and explains that "in the daily wear and tear of life, a wife is in danger of becoming discouraged - so much so that she may lack phileo. A kind of impatient unfriendliness can come over her (who, me?!). She may scold and sigh way too much (was he AT my house last weekend?!). After all, there is always something or someone who needs correcting or fixing (HE IS TALKING RIGHT TO ME). She cares deeply (I do). Her motives are filled with agape but her methods may lack phileo."
Wow - talk about God speaking directly to me. On any other day, those verses and that teaching may just have been a nice lesson, but last weekend it hit my like a ton of bricks.
So the door turned out amazing, I learned a Godly lesson, Tyge still loves me, and all is well.
Keely thinks so too.
Moral of the Story = Home Depot can solve any problem (I bought all new ORB fixtures with the blessing of my ever patient husband, and some gift cards I won at work).
REAL Moral of the Story = When I am struggling or mad at myself, I need to be honest and admit that to my husband, asking for (and be open to receiving!) a little extra love. I can't sulk in silence and let it affect the way I treat him, but rather I need to practice the phileo love that takes work, in addition to the agape love that God created in me to come naturally.
I have the most patient and loving husband in the world.
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