Believe me, I realize how trivial my closet woes are in light of all the tragic nonsense engulfing our world right now. I’m honestly embarrassed to even admit to any of this, but, for almost thirteen years now, this little corner of my personal universe has been driving me absolutely nuts. To a ridiculous degree. On a daily basis.

I’ve shared before about my love for design. I may be a nurse by profession, but my mind at rest naturally defaults back to my love for creating both logical function and restful beauty. This is what soothes me and … I’m sorry … it just makes Debi happy.

So, notice I used the words “logical function”. Take a good look at our master closet again and see if you can spot any logistical problem(s).

Yep. It’s a maddening corner-double-sliding-door-awkward-post-in-the-middle-of-everything-where-you-can’t-see-or-get-to-your-pants-because-it’s-just-so-darn-dark-back-there daily pain in my neck.

And all of the sudden, it just became too much.

I don’t know … these last few years of learning to live within the confines of my own illness, plus the daily stresses of nursing, PLUS the unbelievable stress that our family has been going through for over a year now … I’ve just reached that saturation point where I just had to lower the pressure in SOME portion of my life.

Since I can’t heal myself, and nursing is never going to get any easier, and I also kind of really like my family – even with our problems, the only thing left to do to uncomplicate my life was to make that darned closet go away.

So, being that I’ve been dreaming of doing this for many years, I pretty much knew exactly what would fix the problem.

You can’t see much of it in my awful (demolition morning) “before” picture, but our master bathroom was a huge open square that honestly just sat there empty most of the time. This is why continuing to squeeze myself into this dark corner closet was absolutely ridiculous when there was so much wasted space just begging to be used.

In my mind, the answer was to open up the closet by removing those mirrored doors and the framing surrounding them – including that annoying corner post. Then we would have a wall built that would essentially became the hypotenuse of the triangle, and we would ultimately end up with a giant walk-in-closet.

Problem solved.

Because this was going to make our vanity area smaller, though, I decided to put tape on the floor (you can see it in the picture) where I wanted the wall to be built, and just live with it for a few months, to be sure we didn’t end up feeling too confined.

Believe me … we didn’t.

Also, for the sake of transparency … when I say I “put tape on the floor”, you should probably know that I’m a true symmetry freak, so this process included me meticulously measuring exactly where the wall should go so there would be no question, come renovation day.

Plus, we had decided to not change the flooring in the reno, so it was seriously important to me that the wall run parallel with the grout lines of the existing tile. By the way, you should probably know that I also have parallel issues, as well.

Anyways, once the work finally started, I was beyond excited.

Mirrored doors, annoying corner post, and framing all gone. Hallelujah!

New wall framing up!

Sheet rock in place. But wait …

It’s hard to see from this angle, but guess what? The contractor did not follow my tape line. He swears that he did, but he absolutely did not. With my lifelong symmetry and parallel issues, believe me … I would’ve NEVER taped off a crooked line.

But somehow … I ended up with a crooked wall. Wow.

A few people have told me that I should’ve made him tear it all down and start over. If you read my post from last week about the screwy barn door he also gifted us with, then you already know that this guy really could’ve cared less. He was belligerent and unapologetic about both the wall AND the barn door.

And, honestly – I just really don’t have the strength to fight him. I seriously just don’t.

So after being more upset than I really care to admit, I finally decided that the best thing for me to do was to stop focusing on that stupid unparallel line and enjoy what was on the other side of that wall, instead.

So this is my new view of what was once that maddenly dark corner.

Our master closet is now bright and spacious and, most importantly, logically functional. From one end …

… all the way to the other. And we love it. Every, single day. Even with its imperfections.

Honestly, this crooked wall has actually become a much-needed invasion on my symmetrically parallel little life. Admittedly, my own personal meticulousness does still sometimes feel a little thrown by the sight of it, but it’s also become a daily reminder to me that we live in a broken world.

Absolutely nothing is perfect on this earth.

Not a single person, place, or thing is completely without flaw. And, as hard as we all try to make things appear to be otherwise, they aren’t – believe me. Not a thing is perfect here. And they never will be.

Because we don’t get to experience true perfection until we escape this sin-darkened world and face the glory of heaven.

And we don’t get to do that unless we trust in the saving hope of Jesus.

And that’s just the honest truth, my friends.

It’s only through His sweet grace that we will ever get to experience that pristine perfection that absolutely nothing and nobody can ever mess up. The kind that drives us to our knees and instantly kisses away all the pain we’ve ever seen or experienced on this beautifully broken earth.

And, it’s looking through His eyes of grace that helps us unsee all the ridiculously crooked lines that besiege us today – all the pain and frustration we’ve both felt and caused. And will continue to, as well.

Instead we now see our own true, stripped-bare need for forgiveness and mercy. Its clarity cuts through us, humbling … softening us.

Because now we can truly see just how much we absolutely don’t deserve it, but also just how desperately we need to spread that mercy around, as well. Right here, right now. To everybody.

Thanks for growing with me. ❤

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12-14)

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)