THE WAR ROOM AND THE OFFICE

In 2005, when Andy and I moved into our four-bedroom colonial on the east end of Long Island, we were overwhelmed by the goodness of the Lord. We had walked in and out of the wrong house over and over again, but when we walked into this house, we knew by the time we turned the corner at the top of the staircase that it was the right place. It felt peaceful. It felt spiritually bright. We were grateful to have found it — and even more grateful when the mortgage was approved.

Andy and I were just married and  blending our two families together in one home. This meant that on moving day we had duplicate items. There were extra sets of kitchen utensils and cook wear, two vacuums, two ironing boards, too many towels and blankets. We figured we would move in and then go through and choose which ones would stay and which ones would get pitched.

Then, there was the matter of the books.

Some people find a book they like, read it through and pass it along to someone else. Not me. And not Andy, either. We had marked up our reference books with notes in the margin; we underlined the parts we wanted to remember for later. This is true of some of the fiction we’ve read as well….and our textbooks from college!  All of them.  I never threw one away. I never sold one to the bookstore. As a confession, some of my books have a public library sticker on them because I loved them so much I couldn’t bear to return them, so I paid the fines. It was really cool to see Andy unpack his books and find that there were library stickers on the spines of some of his precious books, too.

With all this in mind, we decided our books weren’t getting unloaded without a plan, and they weren’t being sorted and discarded, either. We could surely find a space in our new house to call the library. Maybe we could build bookshelves on the walls in the room with the Franklin stove, and we could put a cozy leather chair or two in there, too. We could paint the walls some deep, dark color with bright white trim. Yes! We could make our own library! We’d play classical music in there, like the book stores play. We’d line the walls with our degrees; we’d let the kids come in, but only if they were reading. It sounded perfect.

Within days of moving in, Andy started researching plans for the first wall of bookshelves. They were meant to be very classic looking with ultra bright white paint and wide moulding. He set to work right away on them while I got samples for carpeting and paint swatches. Could we really be so bold to pick a deep, rich magenta? Yes! The contrast to the bright white shelving would look great! Let’s do that! And we did.

The wall-to-wall carpeting was installed right up to the bricks by the Franklin stove. With the painting done, too, we brought in an antique desk from a local shop on Main Street in Eastport. It was starting to look great in there. Once the construction of the first bookcase wall was complete and Andy’s books were on display, (sorted by subject as he liked them) it was time to get started on the other walls of shelves, but we ran out of money. The budget crunch kept us from advancing in our plan, so we put the project on hold. Instead of finishing the second wall of bookshelves, my books were reluctantly unpacked onto the large maple freestanding bookshelf that we had moved from my old house where my books were arranged differently, sorted by size, not subject. The room was a work in progress.

We meant to call it the library, but once we moved the desk in, our mail started getting piled there. Then the computer desk was moved in, too. The kids started playing games on the desktop and updating their music libraries on their ipods. They forgot about a glass of iced tea; a stray cookie sat too long on a shelf. Once winter came, that room got loaded down with snow boots and coats and never did seem like what we had envisioned.  It served a purpose more like a home office, so we got to calling it the office.  And we got to leaving most of our messes in there. We would sweep the kitchen counter clean of permission slips and coupon books and it would all end up on top of the antique desk. We should’ve called this room the catch-all because that’s what it became.

Because we both knew that God had called us to the enormous purpose of building a private K-12 Christian school, Andy said we needed a WAR ROOM. Social Studies teachers like to put everything in terms of history or politics. He loved the idea of the office becoming the place where we could strategically plan out the details of our school. That sounded great to me because it would help the school to progress. And I didn’t think it would interfere with the original vision of that cozy space for reading.

Unfortunately, Andy’s illness, death and funeral meant that years passed with that room in perpetual clutter. At the time of Andy’s death, six months worth of mail was piled in our supposed War Room, and I don’t think that old mail got opened for six months more even. The office was not at all a place to retreat and relax. This room, like every other room, was now a place of grieving. I was forced to forfeit our original intentions as the room became the out-of-the-way spot in our house to transfer a mess. The office kept unpaid bills from being in my line of vision.

An unwanted love seat was moved in as an attempt to get back to a place for retreating, but it promptly got covered with more clutter. The computer desk was disassembled as we made way for laptops instead, but that space was taken up with other stuff. Always more stuff. And it all ended up in the office. That was it. It got branded as the office. It was too late to really call it the library anymore, and certainly not a War Room. Everyone knew it as the office.

Years later, when Tom and I started seriously dating, I shared the original plan to have bookshelves line the entire room from floor to ceiling, not just one corner. Tom caught the vision of it right away. He began imagining the finished room. Building the shelves to match Andy’s first two rows of bookcases would free up some space in that room and could make it a great place to sit by the fire. Tom offered to get started on the work. He worked quickly and finished them in just a few weeks. They were functional, gorgeous, sturdy, and exactly how I had imagined the room.

Tom wanted the shelves to match Andy’s plan perfectly. He went out of his way to demonstrate to me that he was willing to honor my deceased husband, willing to copy another man’s plan. Tom showed me that he was an able carpenter, that he had a heart to make me smile, and that he had the humble character that didn’t need to make changes in my home to mark his territory. He beamed when he had accomplished all of that by completing those shelves. My daughter and I painted them together and re-shelved all of my books. At the time it seemed I’d never fill them all; there were so many.

After Tom and I were married, we realized the benefit of putting a spare television in the office to watch movies with the seven kids in our blended family. Summer months are spent at the beach or in the pool or playing ball outside, but the long winter months needed an indoor alternative. Tom mounted the flatscreen tv on the wall opposite the books. We angled the old scraps of furniture among those walls of books to face the screen, and we called it done. Thoughts of this being the War Room were forgotten.

In a moment of indecision, Tom and I moved the flat screen from one wall to the next leaving a terrible splotchy white spackle patch over that rich, dark magenta paint. It stayed that way for over a year. The contrasting colors of the magenta and the bright white were no longer an asset, though, when instead of wide moulding, the white was found in splotches. It looked terrible and more undone than ever. Who needs to give careful attention to the catch-all cluttered tv room we call the office? We don’t entertain in there, so why not leave it in disarray?

It made me feel badly for the office in general. That room hoped to be much more.

Last week, with overnight company a not-too-distant possibility, I got the motivation that I needed to get to sanding that spackle patch and painting over the wall. Nearly twelve years have passed since Andy and I chose the dark magenta. Where is that paint anyway? Isn’t there almost a full can of that down in the basement? Nope. I couldn’t find it. Tom and I agreed on a sand-colored soft beige for two of the walls and found a leftover dark brown to cover the magenta on the other two. We spent hours and hours making the trim brighter white and keeping the carpet free from paint drips. We cleaned off that old antique desk and placed it in the corner opposite the bookshelves. Now, as I sit and work there, I look up to see our lives on those shelves. Tom has his family trinkets and pictures and treasures beside his books. Andy has his. I have mine. There are years of living in my line of vision. Memories. Snapshots of the kids. Life. Hope. And I’m right next to the stove with a warm toasty fire inside. That’s better.

That night, just before heading off to bed, feeling tired, but accomplished, I glanced back at the finished room while turning out the light…at the big fat chair and ottoman next to Andy’s still-placed books, his ashes on the top shelf in an antique wooden box with a hinged lid. I thought I was okay. After all, it’s been almost nine years since Andy’s death. I should be fine, right? But, no. The emotion of the recent release of CHANCE OF RAIN, Andy’s daughter expecting his first grandchild: a son she plans to name Andrew, the school on the cusp of actually opening (even without the War Room ready) all piled on at that instant, and I crumbled there on the carpet. I tried to stand in my quiet weeping for a few moments, but gave in to the recognizable, but not often revealed tears. I cried for over an hour. That’s a long time to cry. I was lost in sorrow and fatigued by my own tears. I suddenly felt like I betrayed Andy to cover his paint, to finish his room without him. Even though I hadn’t thought about it in years, it was at that moment that I remembered it was supposed to be a War Room. And even though it feels good to clear away the mess, it feels bad, too. I couldn’t hold on to paint that’s chipping because I wanted to honor Andy. It just made me cry.

The next morning, I asked God to walk with me through a rare day of swollen eyes. I needed His peace to overwhelm me. I needed Him to show me how the past has prepared me for the future. I trusted Him. He’s done that before. He did do it again. The time spent in the comforting arms of the Father helped me to recognize that the Lord didn’t just have big plans for Andy and I. He has big plans for Tom, too, to help me birth the school.  Sometimes, I see Tom as a childbirth coach. He’s right here next to me, telling me not to give up, reminding me of the preparation I’ve had, of the calling on my life, of my God-given strength and grace. He’s letting me know that he believes in what God has inspired me to do. We both believe that Andy hand-picked Tom to be here with me now to share our lives together and to work on the school in this new clutter-free space. Our freshly painted walls are just a reminder.

Since then, I have felt led to examine the significance of the Jordan River. Not a coincidence to discover that The Jordan River symbolizes transitions. The Israelites leaving behind the old world and walking into the Promised Land is one example. The passing of the mantle between Elijah and Elisha, is another transitional time at the shore of the Jordan. The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River as He begins His ministry is certainly transitional as well.  When a woman is in labor, she is said to be in TRANSITION just moments before she pushes the new life from her belly into the world. I am sure I am in transition, feeling the labor pains and pushing through them with strength and courage while Tom stays beside me all the while. I believe East End Christian Academy is about to open, about to be born!  The War Room may need to be again re-named. Maybe it’s LABOR AND DELIVERY.

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