The Roof Inspection

Welcome to Scattered Moments. These are brief reflections on faith, adversity, and the quiet places where grace appears. It's been quite a shock at the Tullus household over the past couple of weeks. It all started with a stain on the baseboard in our bedroom. Now, I don't do a lot of dining in the bedroom, so I was fairly certain I hadn't spilled anything. And since mysterious stains appearing on walls are rarely included among the blessings of homeownership, I began investigating. I went upstairs, directly above our bedroom, and discovered an even larger stain on the ceiling. And like a domestic Sherlock Holmes who had absolutely no idea what he was doing, I deduced water. Eventually, a roof inspector came out. He spent more than an hour examining everything. He flew a drone over our house. My goodness, this is serious. He crawled through the attic, he checked the temperatures, he examined ventilation, he walked across the roof like St. Nick, except instead of bringing presents, he was apparently preparing to take all my Christmas money. Then he came inside and dropped the news. Our relatively new house had a relatively terrible roof. There were problems with the shingles, problems with the ventilation, problems with the construction. He began listing everything that had been done incorrectly when the house was built, and I started wondering if the original roofing crew had installed the thing during their lunch break. Finally I said, okay, so we need a new roof. In my mind I was thinking, this is going to cost hundreds of dollars. Bless my heart. When the estimate arrived, I discovered that the new roof was going to cost approximately what our first mortgage cost in 1986. And immediately I entered the emotional wilderness of financial despair. I started calculating, recalculating, moving imaginary money from one imaginary column to another. I considered retirement accounts, financing options, savings, interest rates, the economy, social security, inflation, the national debt, and whether I could learn anything from roofing from about 10 billion YouTube videos. To be honest, I only watched like a hundred. And here's the embarrassing part. I'm not down to my last cent. I'm not facing foreclosure. There are options. There are resources. We'll figure it out. But you'd never have known that from the conversation taking place inside my head. And somewhere in the middle of all that financial fretting, the Holy Spirit began conducting another roof inspection. And I think he found the real leak. I'd forgotten who owns the house. I'd forgotten who owns the roof. I'd forgotten who owns the car in the driveway. For Pete's sake, I forgot who owns the driveway. I'd forgotten who owns the bank accounts. I'd even forgotten who owns the people who will be clomping around on my roof in about a week. I mean, he owns everything. That stewardship 101. I mean, I've taught Stewardship 101, I've preached Stewardship 101, I've written about Stewardship 101. Apparently, occasionally I need to retake Stewardship 101 because here's what happens when I forget that God owns everything. Every unexpected expense becomes a threat. Every financial setback becomes a catastrophe. Every estimate becomes a referendum on whether everything is going to be okay. But once I remember that I'm a steward rather than an owner, something changes. Now don't get me wrong, the roof is still expensive. The bill doesn't miraculously lose a zero. The roofer doesn't call and say, Good news, Mr. Tullis, we've decided to do you the whole thing for $79.95. I still have decisions to make. But I don't have to carry them like everything depends on me. I mean, really, God is not pacing heaven saying, Thirty-four thousand dollars, where is he going to get thirty-four thousand dollars? God isn't wringing his hands over my shingles. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and apparently one slightly defective roof in Murfreesboro. That's what this little episode exposed in me. After sixty-two years, I still have my own collection of insecurities, obsessions, worries, doubts, fears, and resentments. I'm still remarkably capable of allowing money to grab hold of my emotional steering wheel. Three things I've learned. Big picture. Number one, I am still a deeply flawed work in progress. Number two, Murphy still shows up like clockwork. And number three, so does grace. Sometimes God uses scripture to expose what's happening in my heart, and sometimes he uses a sermon, and sometimes he uses another believer, and apparently sometimes he uses a roof estimate. So today, I'm going to make wise decisions. I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to look at the numbers. I'm going to be a responsible steward, but I'm also going to leave God's roof with God. He sees the roof, he sees the bank account, he sees tomorrow, and more importantly, he sees the worried little steward standing underneath it all, temporarily forgetting who owns the place. Turns out the roof inspector was right. There were nails all over the place. It had no underlayment. I don't even know what that term means, but it didn't have it. That's the best word I can describe it and still be Baptist, but mess, I learned that there were actually two leaks. It's just that the second one wasn't where I thought it was. Somewhere between the roof and my heart, my trust had sprung on. And thankfully, God is still in the restoration business. So for now, I'll let the roofers worry about the shingles. I've got some work to do under the roof. I'll keep you posted on the roof, but I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a three part episode.