It’s a reflective day for me. No particular reason. No major event. I think it’s just the way I’m wired. I’m not a philosopher, despite how often Marion comments on my stories…”You were philosophical today.”

Sorting my thoughts about my life is kind of like sorting nuts, bolts, nails, and screws in my shop. Some guys (my dad was one) have coffee cans full of every fastener they’ve ever collected. Everything is saved alike and goes into a can, and over time into 40 cans. To find what he wants, he has to start dumping cans on the bench.

I have tiny drawers labeled by length and type. When I buy a new box, I tear it open and it goes into the drawer. When I wrap up a project and have a pile of mismatched screws and nails on the bench, I separate them and they go back into the drawers.

I like having a place to put my thoughts on life same as I like having a drawer for 1 ¼” wood screws.

Being reflective does not mean that I’m worried or stressed. It usually means that my body is busy at some simple task which frees my brain to run wild. Sometimes it happens while I’m cutting grass. Sometimes it happens at three in the morning when I can’t get back to sleep. I even turned on the lamp at 4:00 am this morning to write a few things down on a note pad that I keep beside the bed.

I’m actually out in the shop working on some minor repairs to a couple of dining room chairs. Loose and unglued joints mostly. Nothing broken, so I don’t have to think very hard. Clean up the joints. Fill the gaps. New glue and clamps. That should about do it except for a couple of hard scratches to be filled and refinished.

I’m thinking about the magnitude of change in my life over the last five years. Where I am now is not where I imagined I might be when I was 30. Some of the changes have been squeezed out of this life by sheer determination and hard fought decisions, dipped with uncertainty into the waters of prayer. Quite a few have come to me as something that could only be described as an undeserved Gift from above.

I got news this week that a cousin of Beth’s out in Oklahoma passed away. I never knew the Oklahoma family the way Beth and her family did, but I always enjoyed the trips out there over the years. Leslie, the cousin, lost her husband three years ago. It broke her heart so completely that, in my mind, she basically grieved herself to death. All of which makes me hurt for her kids and grandkids and the family she leaves behind.

She was a lovely soul.

Grieving for a spouse is one of those things that can change you. And having gone through it, I am extremely sensitized to it when I learn of someone who is in the middle of grief. I pay attention to grief. I talk rather freely to others about the process. Not that I understand anything about it. It’s just that I’ve walked that road.

I notice that these chairs have been repaired before. The old glue is dried and brittle. It takes a knife and a chisel to break it all loose and get back to clean wood. Whoever fixed it before shot a brad nail through the back leg and into the tenon of the side brace. Their intentions were good, but now I have to perform surgery to get the nail out so I can take the leg apart properly. The surgical hole will now have to be repaired, as well.

Grief was never the end of life, at least not for me. This is one of those Gifts that can only be explained one way. That Marion came along when she did. That there was room in my life for a second chance.

I underestimated the change that would come. The challenges have been a little harder to figure out than I anticipated two and a half years ago. But the joys have been so full that I am overwhelmed at times and would not trade where I’m at for all the gold in them thar’ hills.

You should see my surgical apparatus. Needle nose pliers on the nail. Vise grips squeezing the nose of the pliers. A small pry bar under the vise grips. Extraction successful. I should patent this tool.

I don’t think any of us can know where life will take us. Retirement. Yeah, I planned for that. But I could never have seen the rest of it. Widowed. Remarried three years later. Expanded family and friends. I changed churches after 25 years in the same place. A few bucket list travels accomplished. I’ve got a new grandbaby on the way this fall.

How much change can one man stand?

I’ll say this. I think the change has been good for me. If I truly believe that there is a greater Hand involved, then I know that none of what has happened is without purpose or plan or forethought or wisdom. Even if I don’t know exactly where the road is leading, I know who created the map.

The thing about life is that it does not remain stagnant. Life moves. The scenery changes. There are turns in every road that come hard and fast. And the best I can do is to find a way to embrace the road I’m on right now. I remember my past. I honor my past. I cherish my past. But I do not live in my past. I’m trying to live where the road takes me.

Even if I could go back and manage all the changes myself and make them turn out the way I would have wanted, I get the idea that I would have somehow shortchanged myself. I would likely mistake opportunity for failure. I could possibly exchange joy for sorrow. If I were in charge, I don’t know that I would want all of my tomorrows to resemble all of my yesterdays.

Life is bigger than anything of which I can conceive, which is why I must trust Another.

These chairs are not broken. They’ve just come apart. The weight of life got to them. The strain put pressure on the joints. They’ve come unhinged and are in need of restoration.

The only way to do that is to take them apart. Not completely. Just the pieces that need work. I’ll make a few changes in how the joints go back together, but when I’m done the lady who owns these chairs will only know that her chairs are in better shape than when she handed them off to me.

I’m not saying my work will be seamless. Close inspection will likely show some of what I’m doing now. Surgery leaves scars. But they will be complete. They will be stronger. They will live again for years to come.

That’s what I hope for. To see every change as necessary.

For by them I am restored.