Feeling a House in the Dark

(circa 1973)

Moving … again? Yes! We had only lived in Los Angeles for 5 months when the church decided to expand and begin a new meeting hall in North Hollywood (a city right next to Burbank). That’s where we had lived our entire lives so we figured that’s where we needed to be.

And so we set out to find just the right house to rent. Because we were planning to have some single sisters live with us, it needed to be big enough, not only for “corporate living” but also to have meetings in, provide hospitality during conferences and have a lot of people over for dinner. Our apartment’s rent in Los Angeles would be up by the end of the month and we wanted to move as soon as we could so we were in a hurry. A rental agent told us about a house that would likely be perfect.

Bill and I decided to meet at our prospective house right after work one evening in mid-January. The agent wasn’t available to be with us so he gave Bill the keys. He said we could just let ourselves in and look around on our own. However, it was dark by the time we arrived. No problem – except for the fact that the electricity in the house had been turned off and we didn’t have a flashlight. The house had large windows in the front so we turned on our car lights to shine through the windows. We figured it was better than nothing.

We cautiously opened the door and began our exploration. Being that we couldn’t SEE the house very well, we had to … um, FEEL the house. We stumbled through the house (trying not to trip over each other), feeling the walls, doors, kitchen, bathrooms, using all of our senses except our diminished sense of sight. It seemed big enough and had just the right layout: 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The kitchen seemed large enough to cook for a crowd and the living room and dining room were big enough too. It had vaulted ceilings and felt very spacious.

And so we excitedly signed the rental agreement and were all set to move in at the end of the month.

Another Look – in the Daylight

A couple of days later I decided that, just maybe, I should go to see the house in the daylight. I figured that might be a good idea before we actually showed up with our furniture. And so I took an extended lunch hour and drove from Hollywood to North Hollywood.

I put the key in the door, turned the lock, opened the door, stepped inside – and stood aghast at the scene that greeted me! The dust-caked drapes were in shreds, barely hanging on to their curtain rods. The tiles in the bathroom had been painted over and the paint was chipping off, exposing some hideous pink-colored, 1950’s style tile vainly trying to hide underneath. The double, built-in oven that I had envisioned cooking chef-worthy meals in wouldn’t even turn on. The interior was in serious need of a new paint job. And the carpet!! The badly stained tan carpet had gaping holes, worthy of tripping on. What had we gotten ourselves into?!?

The moment I arrived back at my office, I frantically called the rental agent. After talking me down off the ledge, he assured me that he would take care of the problems. And he did (well, mostly) – and we moved in, right on time. (Sadly, however, the painted-over pink tile remained.)

Seeing in the Light

I learned a good lesson from this experience that has stayed with me ever since: If you don’t really want to see things in their reality, look at them in the dark. Darkness hides dirt and flaws and no matter how you “feel”, those problems remain, even though you can’t see them. It is only when you turn on the light that you are able to see the dirt and defects. Then you can clean up the mess and repair the problems. (Note: It’s much easier to clean house in the dark and takes much less time – I speak from experience. Just don’t turn on the lights.)

And that translates to me. On the surface, and in the dark, I look pretty good. I’ve learned to behave quite nicely, thank you very much, and deftly fit into prescribed societal norms. But when the light turns on in my heart, when its dark corners are exposed, oh my! There are some nasty things lurking there that, until the light turns on, I am totally unaware of. But, the light helps me see clearly and clean up the mess.

1Corinthians 4:5 says: “… the Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart …”

God uses many things to turn on the lights and one of those things is the people that surround us. Marriage is really good for that purpose and so are the people we work with and people we worship with. For this next stage in our life, however, God was going to use corporate living to shine that light.

And so, for the next seven years, we opened our home and hearts to many single brothers and sisters (even one couple). We thought that God could use us to help them grow and mature in their faith – and maybe we did help them. But God certainly used them to help us. God is like that. He doesn’t waste anything – and loves to use every experience to shine his light into the dark corners of our life. (Stay tuned for some stories about that!)