God Covers with Mercy All We Do in Faith: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#8)
[A note from our Managing Editor: Tim Shorey, pastor and author, is one of our Gospel-Centered Discipleship staff writers. Tim is also currently battling stage 4 prostate cancer. On Facebook and CaringBridge, he’s writing about his journey. We’re including some of his posts in a series on our website called “The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven.” To preserve the feel of a daily journal rather than a published work, we have chosen not to submit these reflections to a rigorous editing process.]
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The Shed
October 7, 2022
About a dozen years ago, my youngest son and I decided to build a shed. I had no money to spend on it so I started to trash-pick materials wherever I could find them. It took about a year for me to salvage everything needed for a ten-by-ten shed, standing a majestic cathedral-like 12+ feet at the peak. I scrounged everything. Two-by-fours, plywood, windows, shelving, siding, roof shingles. All I bought were nails (and lots of them). That’s my number one rule of thumb: never skimp on nails. When you haven’t much clue what you’re doing, pound in a few more 16-penny nails.
Working with just a mental image in my mind, and a hard-working son at my side, we eventually pounded in the last of the nails, and stood back to look. It wasn’t pretty; although actually, the outside didn’t look half-bad. The inside, on the other hand, didn’t look even close to half-good. Still, the job was done, the fun was had, and the shed stood strong. Yet I was perfectly content that it be kept a family secret.
But my wife Gayline had other ideas. Strangely proud of her hubby and son’s work, she was all-too-happy-to show it off. So I was aghast the day when, through my workshop window, I saw Gayline leading “Ed” out to take a look at the Shorey shed. “Ed” was a master craftsman, an absolutely brilliant artist when wielding wood and tool. There was literally no one on earth that I wanted to see that shed less than I wanted “Ed” to. But there was my dear wife leading him out to show off my work. I let out a long anguished “Nooooooooooo!” from my woodshop, but it was too far off for her to hear.
I agonized as “Ed” stood and looked, opened the shed door, stepped in, paused, looked some more, then slowly walked back to the house. I was so mortified that I didn’t even show my face. When I asked his response later, Gayline told me later that when he stood in the shed, he spoke but one word: “Interesting.” That was it. Interesting.
To our credit the shed proved to be both interesting and strong. Not long after, when hurricane Sandy blew through our New Jersey town, taking down ten mighty oaks all around that shed—including one that landed against it—my shed stood firm.
And it still stands today. The current occupants, who have spent a ton of money fixing up the house and yard, have spent none on a new shed. That means either that they like our shed or that I used so many nails that it simply is indestructible, no matter how much dynamite they’ve detonated under it.
So what’s my point? I’m not sure I really have one—except to recount a fond memory.
But “The Shed” does serve to remind of younger and healthier days when I God gave the strength to climb ladders, carry lumber, and measure, saw, lift, and pound all day long. Now I pause before descending the stairs to get my hammer.
We could let “The Shed” stand as an enduring monument to father-son fun, a bit of stingy frugality, the power of nails, or an incompetent carpenter’s flair for the interesting.
But if I had to squeeze a life lesson out of this story, I think it’d be that God alone knows how to build things perfect and beautiful. The best we can do is “interesting.” If I look at everything I have ever tried to build—be it family or church or ministry or relationships—I see the wrong kind of “interesting” everywhere, and I see and grieve my flaws that made it so. O Lord have mercy!
But “interesting” is perhaps the best that any of us can ever do, given our fallibility and sin. Paul was called a Master Builder in 1 Corinthians 3:10 even though, as the “chief of sinners” he was flawed (see Acts 15:36–39; 1 Tim. 1:12–16 ), and even though what he built was flawed (see the Corinthian church).
Perhaps then, in God’s mind, our “interesting” isn’t all bad, for he knows how to take our interesting and flawed efforts and turn them into the beautiful and enduring. When he is done with our “interesting” efforts, built out of the sincerely offered scraps and raw materials that we’ve found along the way, it’ll be gold, silver, and precious stone (1 Cor. 3:10–13).
On that great and final Day when the “interesting” exterior of my “Shed”—indeed, of all that I have ever built—cracks, crumbles and falls off, something beautiful—the beautiful essence of pure eternal “shedness” will forever remain. That which has eternal value will never perish.
This is so, because God does not ask for the perfectly done, but for the well-done. And that which is done well is that which is done as best we know how, out of genuine love for him and others.
O Lord I have tried. Please honor my sincere flawed efforts for your glory, and then cover with mercy all the mess that remains.
* You can read all of the posts in this series here.
Tim Shorey is married to Gayline, his wife of 44 years, and has six grown children and 14 grandchildren. After over forty years of pastoral ministry, he recently retired from Risen Hope Church, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Among his books are Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk; 30/30 Hindsight: 30 Reflections on a 30-Year Headache; and his recently released, award-winning An ABC Prayer to Jesus: Praise for Hearts Both Young and Old. To find out more, visit timothyshorey.com.