There is no furnace vent in our kitchen. There is duct work in the basement leading to somewhere underneath our kitchen, but there is no vent in the kitchen. Sometime in the last 120 years the kitchen vent got covered up, and I had always worriedly assumed that it would take a major excavation in our kitchen to find it. Between this fact and the gaping cracks around our two poorly hung kitchen outside doors, last winter was pretty miserable in the kitchen - I don't think it got above 55 degrees in there all winter! This is why I spent a long part of last weekend winterizing the kitchen doors. The gaping cracks are no longer. But the kitchen is still heat-less...

We've never been completely satisfied with the set-up in a couple of our rooms (having a lot to do with furniture that has been bought to fit in other places), so Saturday we got the rearranging bug. As we moved things around, we thought we would see if a certain item might fit in our kitchen, so, since we have an electric stove with a bit of leeway as to where it fits, we pulled it away from the wall to try it in a different position. As we moved it, Trinity noticed the stove felt warm, but neither of us had used the oven or the stove that morning. This took a moment to sink in, but then we began feeling along the wall and noticed a warm spot right behind where the stove had been.

So, what did I do you might ask? I went and got a hammer and started busting holes in the wall to FIND THAT HEAT! Here is what I found:

It might not look like it, but what you see is a heat duct coming out right behind where our stove used to sit. Now our kitchen doesn't feel like a screened in porch anymore! I can't wait to see our heating bills this winter. Here's a bonus picture - Benton likes the new vent too:

Dr. Chance told me yesterday at lunch, "That'll preach." So, I guess I shouldn't let such a good opportunity pass without at least a little preachin'.

We need to move the furniture of our lives around every once in a while to see what might be hiding behind it. Many times we figure out something that seems to work for us, but as we grow and change something else might work better, if only we have the courage to try a different arrangement. There are so many ways in which our spiritual lives can be like old houses filled with furniture and covered with the hack-jobs of lazy contractors. How many layers of drywall do we have up in our lives, covering up the things that are designed to keep us safe and healthy?

And sometimes it's not even courage that we need in order to move things around, it's just plain old time. We have been living in this house for almost a year, but we never took the time to deal with the furniture that seemed out of place. Once we devoted some time to it, look what we found. We all have busy lives, yes; but maybe taking time to rearrange our furniture and examine the walls in our lives is worth giving some attention, or even more, is vital to our spiritual health and our relationship to God.

I am not content to live with the furniture arrangement of when I was seven, or sixteen, or twenty-two. I know that it might be nice if when you come to visit me my furniture was in the same place it was last time you were here, but I am just trying to uncover what's behind my walls. I hope you are too.