Mudding Lessons

Someone asked me if they could pay my husband and I to do some mudding and sanding for them in their attic.  It was like a sucker-punch to the gut.  I dread mudding more than I dread child-birth...and there is no cute baby on the other end. (No, clean, smooth walls are not even close.)

However, it gave me pause to think about mudding.  I thought about how much someone would have to pay me....hmmm, I don't think there is an amount.  Why not? I thought.  Last night I realized that it is not the mudding itself that I hate.  I hate that it is a process of imperfection that you can't (well, I can't) just do right the first time.  I hate that I have to do it over and over and over and I still feel like I am missing something and doing it wrong.  And the worst part?  While I am making mistake after mistake after mistake, I am leaving my kids and spending time...well, working with mud.  That is the worst part.  Day after day of pushing them away from me so I can pretend like I am finishing something.

This mental process was good.  It helped me be happy when I am mudding (right now early in the morning before everyone wakes up).

As I was mudding, I was thinking about another lesson.  My friend told me how mudding is so much like the Atonement.  You think your wall is done and beautiful...and then you shine the light on it.  Oh, the blemishes that arise!  It is so discouraging.  How much is that like our life!  My friend pointed out how the light is like the Light of Christ that brings to like our own mistakes and blemishes we need to work on and it is even more painful than discovering hours of work was still not enough.  (More painful, yes, although that is pretty painful.) However, as I worked with that light right beside me as I mudded this morning, it helped to direct where to mud and sand so that I could fix those spots.

You know, those mudding spots or blemishes aren't necessarily gone...they are just covered completely.  So completely, in fact, that with a coat of paint, you would be unable to even know where the drywall screws and mistakes were. How true that is with our own lives!  Yes, we are washed clean, but the things we learn from our mistakes and sins are still there...but not as blemishes for others to see.  They strengthen our walls, teach us and serve as reminders...but below the surface and completely "mudded" and smooth.