I must admit, I have always been a sucker for interior design.  Or rather my rendition would be better entitled “playing house.”  Perhaps the appeal for a fresh coat of paint or a hand-picked light fixture is the creative side of me coming through in a way outside of a musical perimeter.  After all, music and home design do have a few things in common.  They both involve attention to creative detail, giving personalized life to an idea already once embraced, and allowing a colorful thought serve to tell others a little bit about yourself.  

So only a few short months ago I embarked on a design-driven journey to… wait for it… bring new life to my bathroom.  Okay, okay.  A bathroom is not all that exciting of a word, let alone that exciting of a room.  A place where we fill our mouths with minty-flavored chemicals, get our gritty selves naked, and dispense last nights dinner.  Hey, I’m just being honest.  As dainty as we try and make it, the bathroom is anything but that.  Although for weeks, I poured into that little bathroom, envisioning nickel in place of gold and gray in place of green; scratches to be fixed by sanding and nicks to be filled with paint.  And without sounding overly boastful or self-confident, can I just say that I am incredibly proud of that little bathroom.  For myself, it went from being exactly what it was – a bathroom – to a little oasis.  Seemingly worth the time and attention that I gave to stripping the worn cabinets down to a paintable surface, or pulling my gracious husband into chipping away at an old sink hole cover.  Though I was determined to bring this project to completion so that I could enjoy the labor of our rookie home-owning hands and meticulously thought out design elements.  

Although I couldn’t help but find myself anxiously enjoying the process not merely for the enjoyment of a creative countenance.  Rather, I realized that my energies were given with great urgency for the sake of two convicting words: instant gratification.  That was it.  I longed for instant gratification; for the work of my hands to produce something that I wanted in my own time.  No waiting for the results.  Simply a desire, an action, an impact.  There you are, Jennifer.  Just as you wanted it, exactly when you wanted it.  Your own “face-lifted” bathroom, so enjoy the fruit of your labor just as you had planned.

How often do we live that way?  How often do I live that way.  Longing for a desire to be met, not for lack of effort and focus, but with hopes of my own timing, at the expense of my selective choosing.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  When will I learn that stepping forward with the expectation of instant gratification is selfish, even though meanwhile, it is what we are taught.  The world, in the sense of our culture, our influences, our peers, have done a wonderful job in making the opposite of a life lived in wisdom rather normal.  Mind you, I have no qualms or convictions about my bathroom.  I still love it, which is why I’m attaching before and after photos in this post :)  Although perhaps rather than letting this room cater to my pride or even thankfulness, I can let it serve as a reminder that the really good things – the things that I submit from my own control – are the things most worth waiting for.