Thoughts on Quimby

In my class, I had to reflect upon a life event. Thought I'd share it here, since so many of you followed our "Quimby saga". :) Just a snippet of what God taught me through it all.

In the fall of 2008, my husband Marc and I became landlords. We moved into the parsonage of the church where I worked, and we decided to rent out the house we had bought as a newly married couple.  The house was nothing special, but it was something we had carefully decorated, updated, cared for and held many special memories for us. When time came for a new lease and another month's rent, we discovered the woman on the lease was in jail, had others living there who didn't have rent money and the house was completely trashed. What followed included phones calls to lawyers, locksmiths, a dumpster to remove all the trash, gutting the kitchen, insurance claims, thousands of dollars that we certainly didn't have, every single free night and Saturday we had for about six months and asking help from family, friends, and our church.

As we filled the dumpster with loads of trash I kept asking how in the world people could live this way. How could she let her children color in permanent marker all over the walls and ceilings? How could she let other people live there who couldn't pay? Why were there eleven mattresses in a three bedroom house?  How could she let a leaky faucet ruin an entire kitchen and never correct the simple problem? How could she sell lawn mowers and other things out of the garage that didn't belong to her ? How could she allow drugs, alcohol, tobacco and pornography to exist in the same home as young children? How could she break doors, put huge holes in the walls, ruin all the carpet and wood floors and never think about the damage she was doing to us? How could she be so completely selfish, neglectful, filthy, ignorant, broken and utterly disgusting?

As Marc and I were the landlords of a simple, one hundred year old house, God is much more significantly the landlord of the earth, and the creator of all life.  He gave us the responsibility of caring for his world and one another.

Genesis 1:29-31 ²⁹ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of               the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰             And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that        move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there          was morning—the sixth day.

 We are God's people, yet we have acted and continue to act like the renters of our Quimby house. We are completely selfish, neglectful, filthy, ignorant, broken and utterly disgusting. Does God not have every right to ask us the questions I wanted to ask of my renter? How can we continue to live this way? How can we do so much damage to ourselves, others and the world and not think of the damage we do to our Lord? We have taken the good gifts of God and exchanged them for unworthy imitations.

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
¹¹ there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
¹² All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”

^{Romans 3:11 - 12}

It took longer than I care to admit for me to forgive my renter. The anguish she caused and my disgust at her lifestyle were overwhelming and I am not sure she has any idea what her actions did. It felt good to be furious with her. I needed a direction for my wrath and anger, and she was the natural recipient. In my mind, she deserved my judgment and unforgiveness.

God's wrath also needs a direction and we are the natural recipient. We deserve God's judgment and have no right to be forgiven, but instead he imputed the guilt of our sin to Christ, and we are declared righteous in his sight.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.  Isaiah 53:6

Our sin and brokenness is so much worse than a simple ruined kitchen and marker on a wall. God's wrath is much more severe than our anger as landlords of the ruined house. Yet, the awesome gift of God's grace is more than we can comprehend. His love for his people is deeper, wider, higher and more intense than we can fathom.

"Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies." Psalm 36:5

I will not forget the feelings I experienced through the discovery of the trashed house, the rebuilding and restoration of it and finally the selling of it. It will serve as a reminder of the amazing reconciliation to God that has been offered to us through Christ. Praise be to God!