Another Mess

I have spent a lot of years teaching myself things I never expected to need to know.

Church tech is one of them.

When I first started putting our tech booth together, I was figuring things out piece by piece. I learned what I needed to learn, bought what we needed when we could afford it, added another piece here and another piece there, and somewhere along the way, that booth became something I knew how to run because I had built it myself.

And there was one thing I had never really done.

I had never completely unplugged it.

For months, Mark and Audrey and I had been talking about finishing the booth. Because our church meets in an arena, the tech booth is right there in the middle of everything. The exposed studs and unfinished walls had been part of the landscape for years, and we had finally gotten to the point where we could do something about it.

They came to me with the idea of putting in a new counter and covering the inside walls with tongue-and-groove boards. I agreed. It was time. I wanted it finished.

Which meant all the tech stuff had to come out.

Every cable had to be unplugged and labeled. Every piece of equipment had to be moved. Hours of work went into getting everything out of the way so they could do their work.

The work itself didn't bother me. It was the thought of what might happen when I plugged everything back in.

What if something didn't work?

What if I couldn't figure out why?

What if I got it all back together and we were suddenly standing there on Sunday morning with a very expensive pile of equipment that didn't know how to talk to each other anymore?

At one point, I told Vic, "I hope I don't screw this up."

We were both standing there in the middle of the mess, surrounded by cables and equipment, and Vic gently reminded me that this was something I'd wanted done.

This was a good thing.

I just needed to remember that.

This wasn't some disaster happening to me.

I just wasn't feeling particularly grateful about it in that moment.

A few days later, Mark texted to ask when I was coming over to hook everything back up.

I told him probably the next day and Thursday. He said they were finished unless I wanted any changes, and then he offered to come help.

My first thought was, "For sure, I should be able to do this myself."

But then he followed up.

He wanted to be there while I worked, not just drop things off. He'd picked up a few things that might help tidy up the cables, and he figured he'd be there in case anything needed adjusting.

He had Bible study in Spearfish early that morning, but he said he could come whenever it was convenient for me.

So I told him I'd be there right after bus drop-off.

And honestly, I was relieved.

Once I thought about the actual size of the job, I realized this wasn't going to be a quick little plug-everything-back-in-and-go kind of project. There were a lot of cables, a lot of equipment, and a lot of opportunities for something to need adjusting.

Having someone there who knew what he had just built, who could help me figure out the things that didn't quite fit back together, suddenly sounded pretty good.

When I walked into the booth that morning, the first thing I noticed was how different it looked.

The new counter was in. The tongue-and-groove paneling covered the walls that had been unfinished for so long. It looked like a finished space instead of something we had just learned to work around.

And then it was time to put everything back.

Mark and Audrey were there with me, actually working alongside me as we started putting the pieces back where they belonged. Most of it came back on right away, which was a huge relief. There were a few things that needed adjusting, a few little hiccups to work through, but nothing that couldn't be figured out.

And standing there in that finished booth, I realized how much I had to be grateful for.

I was grateful for Mark and Audrey and the work they had put into that space. They had taken something that had been unfinished for years and turned it into something that felt intentional and finished. It was good work, and they had done it well.

I was grateful that Mark had shown up to help me put my part of it back together, too. I could have done it myself. Eventually, I probably would have figured it all out.

But I didn't have to.

And maybe that's part of the habitude of gratitude.

Sometimes gratitude isn't the feeling that comes naturally in the middle of the mess. Sometimes you have to stop long enough to recognize what is actually happening.

The thing I was worried about wasn't a disaster. It was a good thing that required some work. I had people around me who were willing to do that work with me. And when it was finished, I got to stand in the middle of it and see what I might have missed while I was worrying about everything that could go wrong.

I've written before about Wesley's idea of temper, a settled disposition that is formed through repeated practice. We don't become a certain kind of person by having a certain feeling once. We become that person by practicing something until it starts to shape the way we respond.

Pastor Isaac called it the "habitude of gratitude." Not just an attitude we put on when things are going well, but a habit we practice until gratitude becomes part of the way we see our lives.

That feels a lot like temper to me.

We practice gratitude until it becomes less about forcing ourselves to feel thankful and more about becoming people who notice what there is to be thankful for.

Because there will always be something that doesn't go exactly the way we planned. There will always be cables to unplug, things that have to be moved, pieces that don't quite fit, and moments when our first instinct isn't necessarily gratitude.

But there will also be things worth noticing.

People who show up.

Work that gets done.

Good things that we almost miss because we're too busy worrying about the process.

Maybe that's the work of forming a grateful temper. Not pretending everything is easy or good, but learning to recognize God's goodness in the middle of whatever is actually in front of us.

We practice gratitude until we get better at noticing what was there all along.

These days, I've been trying to end my days by running through a short list of things I'm grateful for.

Not because every day has been good. Some days aren't.

But because I want gratitude to become something I practice, not just something I feel when life happens to cooperate.

And this week, I knew exactly what would make the list.

The finished booth.

Mark and Audrey's work.

The fact that Mark showed up and helped me put everything back together.

The things that worked, the things that needed adjusting, and the fact that none of it turned into the disaster I had imagined.

Those are easy things to be grateful for now.

The harder part will be remembering to practice gratitude the next time something is sitting in front of me that I don't particularly want to deal with.

There will be another mess. Another disruption. Another thing I have to take apart before I can put it back together.

I won't always feel grateful when I'm standing in the middle of it.

But maybe that's exactly why we practice.

Maybe the goal isn't to become someone who is always grateful, but someone who keeps looking for what is worth noticing, even when the thing in front of us isn't what we would have chosen.

I'm still practicing.

And tonight, Mark and Audrey's work will be on my list.


This Week
Think about something in front of you right now that you're dreading, a project, a conversation, a mess that needs cleaning up before it gets better. Notice what your first instinct is, worry, complaint, or wanting to handle it alone.

Then try building your own version of a gratitude list, even just for this week. Before you go to bed each night, name two or three things from the day you're grateful for, even on the days when gratitude doesn't come easily.

You're not trying to force a feeling. You're practicing a habit, one small notice at a time.


Prayer
Lord,

Thank you for the good things we almost miss when we're distracted by what isn't working yet.

Teach us to practice gratitude instead of waiting to feel it, and give us patience with ourselves as we build that habit one small notice at a time.

Help us welcome the people you send to help us, and shape us into people who notice your goodness even in the middle of the mess.

Amen.