Picnic Tables

The simple lessons are the ones that bite me in the rear, every time. Apparently I need the lessons simple and clear.....elsewise I'm in for round 7,359 trying to 'get it'.
Could be that it's cuz I'm a stubborn cuss, huh?

So we have these picnic tables at work.
We've had them six freaking years. What do you expect from six year old picnic tables? I expect weathered wood and some falling apart to be happening (with 25 adolescents and their families, why wouldn't I expect that?!). Every other year we've set about sanding them down and staining them.
Could we afford new tables--probably. But the lesson for the kiddos is in hard work paying off, don't ya think? That's a lesson I'd like them to get....work hard, stick at it--and you too can make pretty picnic tables from weathered, gunky looking ones.

I'm pressed for time nowadays.
But I like that stuff.....gimme a sander and a couple kiddos and the outdoors. And give me the end product. In a life where I seldom GET end products, an end product is important to me.

I ended up passing on the picnic table adventure this year. More and more I'm discovering just what a 'busy woman' I truly am.
Leastwise I said I was going to pass......and an able bodied counselor decided she'd pick it up and do it with the kiddos.
It was a great thought.

I resented that I didn't have the 'time luxury' to do it.
I resented that MY project was confiscated. (...LOL....well, it'd been 'mine' for years, dangit!)
I resented that the other gal failed to follow through.
I resented that I was told I had 'more valuable projects' to spend my time on.
And I'm sure I looked obsessed when I picked up the sanders and took a couple kiddos 'hostage' to help me work on the darn tables.

And I stayed secretly poofy about it all, truth be known.
I had this teeny, tiny chip on my shoulder.

And I had two very crappy picnic tables.

We sanded the weathered tops and I wasn't happy with the end product. I thought I needed to give it up and go for brand new tables. Forget the lessons, forget the experiences for the kiddos--give up what I'd set out to do and give in to the time constraints--take an easier softer way. BUY a couple of new ones and get OVER it! And as I'm staring at the tables, resenting the whole experience and about to trash it all, someone moved to stand next to me and said:
"How about if you just turn it over?"

I did.
Literally and figuratively.
We turned over the wood planks.
I turned over the resentments.
I MADE the time and made it AS important as some of those 'more valuable things'.

The tables sanded down like new--with four coats of stain and varnish, they SHINE.
They're beautiful.
THE best looking picnic tables we've had in six years.

The kiddos who worked side by side with me are beyond proud.
They beat it to their parents car to announce that THEY'D done the tables--and aren't they just too cool.

And all we had to do is turn it over.
It's their victory and their lesson--supposedly.

I'll be confessing that G-d multi-tasked on those picnic tables.
And He did a beautiful job, too.
Everybody's shining.....