Let the {Light} In

This is one of my favorite verses. Isn't it beautiful? It comes from the gospel of John, my favorite book in the bible.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." {John 8:12}

Speaking of light, our guest room (that doubles as an office) has one oddly placed window. It sits in the very corner, all by its lonesome. I thought that putting my peacock curtains up in this room would improve it a little, but it was just the opposite. The window looked just as odd, if not more so once extra attention was being drawn to it, and the curtains didn't look great either. Not only do they not hang to the floor- this old house has high windows and needs the long 95" inch curtains- but they did this funny "balloon" thing where they looked skinny at the top but large at the bottom. Kind of like the bottoms were fanned out. But what else was there to do? I was too busy working on Asher's nursery at the time, so just getting them hung was an accomplishment in my book- awkward and balloony or not. (Excuse these really terrible, grungy photos.)

But I've turned a new page since coming back a couple of weeks ago. In case you couldn't tell, I'm in the oh-my-gosh-we-live-in-a-real-house-again so let's spiff-it-up! mode. Needless to say, I've really learned to appreciate the freedom to customize our own space after living in the hotel for four months. With the exception of painting (sigh) it's been such a treat to put some new life in this old place!

Anyway, back to the peacock curtains. Light has always been a problem with the front side of this house. The sun doesn't naturally rise (or set) towards the front, and we have a huge tree that blocks what light we do get. The guest room/office is no exception, and our dark and lovely peacock colored curtains weren't helping. So the wheels on the bus (I mean brain) started turning, and on comes the bulb. Why not lengthen the rod so that the curtains could be pushed farther apart, so that they weren't blocking any of the actual window anymore?

The problem; the rod is already installed, and the brackets don't move without starting from scratch and totally redrilling new holes. (Which was not happening, these walls are a weird mixture of plaster and concrete, except in totally random patterns making it impossible to know where you can drill and where you can't. And that equals one heck of a rod-hanging-nightmare. For Thane anyway, ha! Thanks honey...you're the best!)

But wait a minute! What if we don't close these curtains? (Which we don't, they're too high and difficult to close and we have blinds that work for privacy.) If they don't need to close, then it doesn't matter where the bracket is, as long as the rod is lengthened so that the panels can hang on the other/outer side of the bracket!

So, that's exactly what I did. In about five minutes or less, we went from having light-blocking curtains that made our window appear smaller to non-light blocking ones that showed off the full size of the window!

Here's a before shot...

And after...

We have light!!!

You might have noticed that I also did a little re-arranging. The bed moved, and the little night table came out of our living room where it really wasn't being utilized. The lamp has always been in this room, but now that it sits on the new night table in front of the curtains, it draws attention away from the the fact that they don't hang to the floor. And you can't really see the balloon effect anymore. Lastly, I'm pretty sure the new furniture arrangement makes the odd placement of the window appear not so odd as well.


So there you have it, possibly the easiest yet most effective little improvements ever. All done in a few minutes time. Well, the rearranging took longer, you know how that goes.

Going back to the verse I mentioned at the beginning, I wish I had something interesting to say about it other than just that "I like it". But I guess it's alright to keep things simple. After all, Jesus did. Which (here comes something, haha) reminds me of the story of the criminal who died next to Him on the cross. I admire that story because it shows the true simplicity of Christ's saving grace. Here was this lowly man that lived a life of sin and rebellion against God. Yet all it took for him to be saved was the simple acknowledgement that he was a sinner deserving of death and the trust that he put in Jesus when he asked Him to "remember him". What a perfect picture. Here we see a man's faith, repentance, and salvation, all at once. And you might even say that the confession he gave before the crowd at the crucifixion was similar to the public confession we make when we follow Christ in baptism.

But there's more that makes this story great! Think about this; even though this man had no time on earth to yield any "fruit" after being saved, (something most Christians are worried about) God has been telling us his story and showing us his example for hundreds of years since. And what is that? Fruit! Another proof of how it's He who works in and through us by the power of His Spirit, totally apart from our own efforts.

So anytime I hear alternate (false) doctrines or disputes between Christians that have to do with minor issues, I think back to this story. It's so silly to try to add to, take away, or even dispute God's Word and His provision for our salvation. He makes it so simple...all praise to Him.

Like it? Share it!