Razor Blades and the Ex-Wife

Most of the time, I don't think about my husband's ex.

I mean, sometimes we get junk mail for her (why yes, she'd love to open another credit card account); she and Josh still have some mutual friends (we came across her MySpace page which was kind of awkward); and Josh and I have talked a lot about their relationship, and how the Lord has healed him from that pain. You can check out his blog entitled Redemption Draweth Nigh to read more of Josh's thoughts about his divorce.

Together we've prayed about it and closed the door on that part of Josh's life. We wish her healing and peace and that she'll stay out-of-state.

But mostly, I just don't think about her.

Until this week.

The front windows in our living room and our back kitchen door are painted white around the sills, and on the little strips of wood between the panes of glass. That looks nice.

What doesn't look nice is that the person who did that trim work didn't bother to mask anything, resulting in a one-inch smear of white paint on the glass.

Let's see... 4 separate panes of glass per window, times 5 living room windows, times 4 edges per pane, times how many inches per edge, times...HOW HARD IS IT TO USE A LITTLE MASKING TAPE?

I spent too many hours standing on a chair or kneeling on the floor with a spray bottle of some magical orange cleanser that says right on the bottle "Not Recommended for Use on Glass" that really did make the paint easier to scrape off. (hey...it was Josh's idea)

My hands cramped up severely and I have blisters on my thumbs from inching the razor blade along the glass.

Sometimes the paint would cooperate and peel off in satisfying 5 inch strips, but sometimes I had to pick pick pick at each little fleck. You know what a razor blade sounds like scratching on glass?

IT SOUNDS LIKE HIS EX-WIFE.

Scraping off all that paint was sort of a cathartic activity, allowing me to release some pent-up frustration with her that I didn't really realize I had. It's a good thing Josh wasn't around to listen to me curse as I almost slashed the razor blade through my rubber glove, or when the chair wobbled and I banged my forehead on the window sill.

Her fault...her fault...her fault...

It's weird to realize that if she had done things better in the first place, not only would I not be scraping paint off those windows, I wouldn't have Josh in my life at all. Not quite sure what to do with that line of reasoning. I think I continue to blame her for recurring pain that I see in my husband's life; Josh is better at releasing that hurt to the Lord than I am.

I'm grateful that God's love and providence comes from a perspective that is outside of human experience. I tend to just see smears of paint on every pane of glass...a cloudy vision of grace.