I spent the day doing something I've done my whole life...well, most of it: handy-(wo)man work. I'm definitely my pappy's girl when it comes to building things/putting things together and he's taught me a lot over the years.
I never imagined when I started this day with the plans of hanging one simple shelf that the Lord would teach me so much, but you know how He works.
I've been spending lots of time in Bryleigh's nursery over the past few weeks finally getting it all put together, and I'm happy to say I've finished up 2 of her walls and had one shelf to hang before finishing a third. Brad and I had purchased some shelves and hardware at Lowes last week, but when I got it in her room, I just wasn't feeling. So I went back to the drawing board...well, in this case the internet, and found the perfect shelf from The Container Store.
I was pretty excited when I opened the package and noticed there was a template that was the same size and shape of the shelf. I thought to myself, "This is going to be a piece of cake. I'll have this hung in NO time!"
So I did some measuring to find out the center of the wall and then found the center of the template and lined them up, then attached the template to the wall.
After I had the template hung, I double checked to make sure it was level and grabbed the instructions to get started. I quickly read through all of the directions to get a feel for what tools I would need and what I'd be doing and things sounded straight forward enough...poke holes on the "X", drill 1/8 inch holes, if you don't hit studs then drill 3/8 inch holes, then just install the hardware and viola!
I hit a snag when I couldn't figure out the drill and how to get the drill bit out, but my sweet hubby helped me out there. I got all 6 holes drilled with the 1/8 inch drill bit and didn't hit any of studs, so I was able to move forward with the next step.
The next step: toggle bolts. That's officially a four letter word in my vocabulary now. If I ever open a package again that says "toggle bolts" included, I will take the purchase back. Immediately.
In order to insert the toggle bolts, I needed to drill a hole in each of the previous holes with a 3/8 inch drill bit. Straightforward enough. I like using the drill. I knew how to change the bit now, so I was ready to go. That was, until I SAW the 3/8 inch drill bit! It was the second BIGGEST drill bit in the whole set!! I immediately started second guessing everything I had already done, re-read the instructions 3 times, and triple checked the drill bit case to make sure I had the right size.
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| Considering there is ONE nail hole in Bryleigh's room...these were a BIG commitment to make on her wall!! |
After all of that doubting and re-reading, I came to the conclusion that it must be right and I would just move forward and HOPE that it all worked out. So I drilled the {LARGE} holes and then moved on to inserting the {OF THE DEVIL} toggle bolts. (I will admit I had to pull out the first set of toggle bolts because the "toggle" was on backwards.) After all of that, I was able to get the hardware all installed and the shelf locked in to place perfectly.
As I sat and thought back on the whole process, thanking the Lord that all of the work ended up being correct and the shelf looked great, I immediately realized how often I question the Lord just because His instructions LOOK as if they couldn't possibly be right.
We've got His book of instructions right in front of us. He tells us exactly what He wants us to do. Sometimes He even tells us (in soft whispers or FLASHING LIGHTS AND BOLD LETTERS). And sometimes, those instructions seem a little outlandish or extreme, maybe something we aren't used to or puts us outside our comfort zone. But that's exactly what we are supposed to do. We are called to obey Him, whether we have the whole picture and know what the outcome is going to be or we only have the very first step. Odds are, if we take that first step (even if it seems a little crazy), we'll end up with a perfectly hung shelf.
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