A table with an attitude...

So I spent a little time this afternoon working on THE table. I would now like to say, I believe it actually has about 500 coats of paint on it. Ok... perhaps I exaggerate, but you get my point.
I sanded for hours on Saturday. Today I brought in the heavy guns - paint stripper and a plastic scraper. (The table laughed at my feeble efforts.) So I tried more stripper and a razor blade - I know, all you professional furniture re-finishers are gasping, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
By the end of the afternoon I has used 1/2 a can of stripper, one package of sandpaper, and 2 scrapers. Is is possible for tables to have personalities, because I think this one is especially stubborn...













First picture.... After hours of work...

All of this sanding, refinishing and refining had me thinking today. There are so many Scriptures that talk about how the Lord refines us like gold and silver. How He is a faithful craftsman refinishing us and sanding away the parts of us that do not reflect His glory. I had always read those verses, and thought, "Poor me, having to be refined and sanded and refinished is so hard on poor little me." But today when I was in the midst of the unending project I had another perspective. "Poor refiner... ", I mean sure, being sanded isn't very fun, but all the table had to do was sit there and cooperate. I was the one doing all the hard work.
Perhaps that's how it really is in our lives. The Lord is the one who is at work in us. Our biggest job is to be cooperative. (Maybe the Lord gave me this very difficult, stubborn table as some sort of lesson about myself... nah, surely not :-)