Stupid office engineers and stupid 109 pages of instructions and 47,000 included pieces sold to normal non-violent law-abiding citizens!!!

“Should take two people four hours to put this together”

This begs the question what kind of people and how many minutes are in this hour you speak of? Perhaps robots or the Flash, Bionic man or maybe just a futuristic movie where humans have been taken over by artificial intelligence that could actually put that stupid greenhouse together in this time frame? And I didn’t even get involved the first two days.

My mom and dad never fought in front of us or looked like they wanted to murder each other before, so this week has been difficult for Child-Corey. They spent two full days AFTER building the base from my blog last week before I got into it again.

(They were quite civil, but struggling with the spirit of murder all the same I would guess. It just sounds more exciting if they fought like the rest of us do)

My motto throughout life has always been “How hard could it be?”, then I would dash off to glorious adventures with an impish grin and a devil-may-care glow about me. I have truly accomplished some impossible things that most people would shudder at but I will NEVER EVER PUT A GREENHOUSE TOGETHER AGAIN.

Day three comes around and I’m wondering what the freaking holdup is so I head out on my day off to see if I can help my folks out.

In complete honesty, the instructions were almost decent and all the parts were probably actually there. What can’t quite be conveyed accurately is the emotion of wanting to murder anyone who had anything to do with this greenhouse from hell.

From Costco (normally love Costco), to the design people involved (love people), to the sadistic, twisted human (love humans) who dwelt on an idea implanted by the enemy of our souls to create an affordable, functional greenhouse for non-murderous people for the sole reason of testing their souls beyond measure.

“You all love Erin and that’s why you did it. You should love your wife PASTOR Corey!”

Go Away.

Yeah I love my wife too much to ever do that to our family again! And, while I’m ranting, my wife now enjoys a greenhouse she didn’t have to put together in any way. I love that sort of thing myself (free stuff put together by others), so I’m not condemning that, just pointing out some things that need pointing out.

Life is like that stupid greenhouse. Marriage actually…

Yeah it all looks ok now baby, but it was hell for a few days.. or weeks… or months… or years…

No one tells you before parenting that it will be the most rewarding, terrible experience of your life, but it is. Actually everyone told you but you probably listened about as much as I did..

We approach life and are sold many things by many people who have great ideas for us. Like this greenhouse, I could just about guarantee that the idea person/ designer has never actually put one of these together. People like that are book smart but not smart smart.

Everybody who is divorced is an expert on marriage! The only experts on parenting are people with no kids! Why is that?

I think we were designed by God in a very practical, loving way for a practical, loving purpose. Just my opinion…

Yeah the bible is huge, but Jesus boiled everything down to two pages of instructions:

1. Love God
2. Love people

When we don’t apply these two rules to the lives we build they get complicated really fast. Then the instruction manuals get longer and far more detailed than they ever needed to be. We have a way of twisting everything around us to suit ourselves and are shocked when we have to go back fourteen steps, tear everything apart and “Install bolts here for future brace”.

…So we got the whole thing put together and were quite proud of ourselves. The only thing we left out was a fifteen minute job of installing the braces (take it out of the overtime used up).

That night the wind came up around midnight. My mom and dad live across town and were literally up all night worried about that stupid greenhouse. I was thinking about it too.

Somehow it was still standing in the morning.

I think if we really had any clue about our marriages and families we would have to say “Somehow they’re still standing!” (if they actually are). We have complicated things so badly with sin and selfishness that we require things that people who Love God and Love People don’t require at all.

If God designed us simply, with real ingredients of worth and love, perhaps when we took over the patents of purpose and control and started deciding what we were born for and what we should look like things went horribly wrong?

“I deserve ____ and I need ____!”
These are things we say and actually believe.

When you get as tired of the long instruction manual to get what you want as I am (impossible to live by anyways), maybe it’s time to go back to the real Designer and do what we were supposed to do in the first place?

Love God and love people… there’s the steps we missed..
Better tear it down and go back to the first wrong assumption..

I just think we are born loving ourselves more than the other two..