Sanding the hardwood of our lives

Recently, my family and I went back home to Georgetown, Delaware to help renovate my parents home.

My job was to work on the kitchen cabinets. I was to sand, prime and paint 50-year-old cabinets.

In addition to the cabinets, I had to redo the wooden butcher block countertop. My grandfather custom made all the cabinets and the wood countertop. You see he was a carpenter who worked on the “Old State House” when they were rebuilding it out of the oldest wood in the area.

In that process he used some of the left-over wood for our countertop. He glued pieces of old Heart Pinewood together. It was so tough he had to hand plane it originally. No electric sander for him.

Fifty years later his granddaughter refinishes it. I must take off all the old and begin anew. Nothing would take off the finish, it was stubborn and sticky. It broke three sanding belts.

As I stood in the middle of the garage, I realized this is a lot like life! I took the roughest sandpaper and took the countertop to the bare wood, I was reminded of how often we start over.

We have the top layer of grit and grime sanded off of us, so the new and fresh us can be smoothed out and a bright new finish applied. It took five days to complete the old butcher block wood countertop.

I could have worked another five days, but eventually I needed to say that’s enough, I just can’t get all 50 years of marks, cuts and blemishes out. As I was lamenting this to my mom, she replied, “why would you want to? Those bumps and nicks are what make it special and unique.”

As we remake ourselves, it is easy to “take it down to the bare wood,” but let us remember to keep the most unique things about ourselves. Keeping the nicks and cuts, the blemishes and bruises that make us unique and creative also make us tough. Some things need to be sanded out, but some things need to be preserved.

Things like love, compassion, humor, joy, peace, patience, kindness and generosity all need to be kept. Things like anger, jealousy, envy, gossip, deceit, to name a few to be sanded out.

I hope you are sanding the right things out of your life.