Redecorating

Sometimes, reinventing means doing some redecorating because visuals are reminders. With some Christmas and birthday money, one of the first things I did was to buy a new comforter and make new curtains for my room. I wanted to make it feel like my retreat, not a place to reminisce.

While I loved the lighter, brighter colors, they made my ancient dresser look downright dowdy. My dad painted that dresser for me when we got our first apartment, complete with country stencils. Before that, it graced my parents’ room for as long as I could remember. Twenty years is a long time between paintings, and my dresser showed the wear and tear of four moves, two kids, and lots of makeup and dust. So, I bought the forbidden spray paint (hey, no one was around to tell me that I couldn’t do it myself) and went to town.

And then I put the same old stuff on top of my dresser. In the same pattern.

Isn’t that what we do with our lives sometimes, too? We think we’ve done some sprucing up, like a new haircut or a new outfit, but when we open our mouths, out comes the same, old yuck. Instead, we ought to “be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, that [we] may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2). I’m working on changing my mindset through Bible studies and relying on God to help me settle into the new normal and a better reinvention of my heart–a bit of redecoration of my soul, as it were.

As far as my dresser top goes, I bought a piece of shiny, smooth Plexiglas to protect the new paint job. (Side note: Plexiglas is not the same as glass. Don’t put your hot flat iron on it.) Then I swapped out my jewelry box and put my international decorative boxes on display. Voila! A new and improved look to the same room, and it didn’t even cost too much.