For the past two weekends, I’ve been in the small town where I grew up getting my childhood home ready for a renter. It’s been emotionally and physically hard, but now that I have a renter bringing life to the house I grew up in, I feel better. Guess a house needs some new blood every fifty years or so, right?
One reason that it was made easier is that my lifelong friend is a real estate agent who taught me some life “hacks” that I wanted to share with everyone in case you are trying to do a “Quick Fix” on a piece of property.
Life Hack #1: Clorox with bleach: I’ve always been afraid of bleach. No more sisters. This substance is amazing! Did I wear gloves? Did I test it before I did a large area? Yes and Yes! Would I use it again? Absolutely. Don’t use Clorox bleach on anything delicate, honestly, but the cleaning power is amazing.
Life Hack #2: Spray Paint. Could you spray paint an entire house? Of course not! But, when we had several little touch ups, especially outside, I was amazed at how little effort it took, as an example, to get a light pole shining again. WOW.
Life Hack #3: Mr. Clean Magic Erasers: They actually live up to their brand name of “magic”. I honestly don’t know how they got some of the spots out that they did on the walls, but they did. Buy the big box and thank me later.
Life hack #4: Gorilla Glue. When I went to a local store, the woman was emphatic that this product was what I needed. I had some tile that had been knocked down and needed to be quickly replaced as the edges were rough. She was right. Gorilla Glue also lives up to its name.
But there’s one truth in life that is not a life hack. This was the person I needed most to help me get through this emotional challenge of getting a house ready for someone else to live in. That person is Jesus, and he is not a hack, but very real.
Jesus and I had many talks during the weekends that I was cleaning and preparing the house. He knew deep down that this was not something emotionally that I wanted to do but he also knew that financially I needed to do it. And, just when I would tell him, I had had enough, I’d get some encouragement.
Like the time I found a box of poems that my mom and I had put together to read at monthly meetings. I had looked for a copy of that for over 30 years.
Or the time I found the birdfeeder my dad built. It may not be squirrel proof or fancy, but it’s going up in my back yard!
Looking back on these weekends of preparation, I could have done it without the life hacks, but not without Jesus. He saw me through.