Filling holes

I feel like I spent my whole week filling holes

This was the front door of the house we are working on when we purchased it. It is an 8 foot tall door so we did not want to replace it.

That meant the cracks and missing wood needed attention. Bondo car body filler is the carpenter's friend. The door is ready for the finish coat of paint (except for a couple a pieces of wood to hold in the lower left glass pane).

We are replacing the doors to the bedrooms. The door jambs are also 8 foot tall with transoms over the doors. Our plan is to put new doors in the old frames. That meant all the old hinge and lock cut outs needed to be filled before we could cut new ones. Yep, Bondo again. 

They are all filled sanded and painted.

Then there were the floors. The hot water radiators had leaked and in a couple of places the floors had  swollen up.

Took out the pieces that were raised and trimmed them. Then put them back into the floor. 

There were the holes where the pipes had gone to the old radiators

A total of 23 holes to fix.

There were a couple of times I thought I had them all and then I moved the carpet I had down while painting and there were more.

I hope they are all filled now.

There are 2 door ways to the bedrooms where the flooring was painted. Why, just why? I checked today to make sure it would sand down. Hopefully tomorrow we will start putting the new flooring in the hallway and I wanted to know if we would have to go into the doorway. I am thinking not at this point. 1 hole we don't have to fill.

There were no upper cabinets in the kitchen when we bought the house.

We have put in several and we still need to purchase another 3. I put the first coat of polyurethane on the inside of the doors this morning.

Also put a coat on one of the new bedroom doors.

A neighbor to another house we have purchased, but haven't worked on yet, told Sharon Wednesday evening there was a window out of the house. She was concerned because squatters had broken into the house in the past. I was concerned because we had the furnace on and I didn't want to be attempting to heat all of Oskaloosa.

When we purchased the house the sellers said they would give us 5 windows they had bought for replacements. I thought I would just quickly screw one into place Wednesday evening to close the house up. 

Yea, that didn't happen because not a single one of those new Pella windows will fit anywhere in this house, or in any other house that we own. Fact is, I would like to see the house these windows would fit in. So there is a piece of plywood covering the hole now until the new windows are delivered to the distributer.  

I dismantled one of the new windows that were part of the purchase and I think at some point in the future I can use the parts as fixed windows that do not open to replace old picture windows and garage windows. 

So I spent my week filling holes. Holes in a door and in door frames. Holes in floors and holes where there should be cabinets. A hole where a window blew out.

It isn't always easy to fill holes in houses, but it is a lot easier than filling holes in people's lives. When I was teaching Bible classes to junior high students, I told them if you are being harassed by a bully, remember this, that kid is a bully because his or her life stinks elsewhere. They have a hole in their life and they don't know how to fix it, so they are taking their pain out on you.

A lot of adults have holes in their lives as well. Many can't figure out what the purpose of their life is and live in despair. Many want to be loved and are looking for love in all the wrong places.

God made humans with a hole in them that only He can fill. Everyone needs to be loved and God is love. Everyone needs a purpose in life and God can give your life purpose. 

The paradox of life is you need to give everything up to gain everything. If you want a fulfilled life you have to say, "God fill me with your presence, I give myself to You."

That's the only way to get all your holes filled.