From Leprous Plaster to Gleaming Stone

Our previous home in Central Asia was an old stone house right on the edge of the bazaar. It was very beat up when we agreed to rent it. Much of the wiring and light fixtures were still from the 1950s. The garden courtyard was an overrun mess of brambles and dust. All the water tanks were rusted out and useless. And two internal walls showed extensive water damage.

At the time, there were only two of us who really believed in the potential of this run-down, dusty old house. Me – and Adam*, my good friend who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Most of my local friends and colleagues understandably said I was crazy for taking on a project like this. But Adam, my one believing friend who technically was crazy, was adamant that we had to get this place. That in itself probably confirmed that the others were right. Nevertheless, I sided with my schizophrenic friend and went for it. My wife (who was nervous about the whole thing, yet bravely willing to follow her husband) and I had always wanted to live within walking distance of the bazaar and here was our chance. Surely, bringing a house back from the dead couldn’t be that hard.

In particular, Adam was captivated by the potential of the thick stone walls of this house, and especially the two internal water-damaged walls. Because of what to me looked like leprous wall spots of Levitical proportions, we would definitely have to replace the plaster, as well as patch the roof cracks. But, instead of then simply replastering the walls, Adam wanted me to let him get rid of all the plaster, polish and varnish the stones, and then put fresh white plaster in the seams of the rocks. The finishing touch would be framing the whole wall with a sharp plaster border. This labor would draw out the natural colors of the large stones, contrasting richly against the white of the plaster.

In this season, Adam wasn’t doing so well and wasn’t yet willing to gather with other believers again. He also needed work. And work, creative work, in particular, seemed to ground his mind and make him less prone to believe that the spy agencies of various Western nations were after him and trying to turn me against him. I thought a big project like this might be a chance for us to spend some time together as friends – and also get him around other local believers like Frank*, who was responsible for the painting and replacing the old wiring.

Some of these hopes turned out better than others. Adam’s enthusiastic work stripping the plaster off the walls filled the entire house with clouds of plaster dust for weeks on end. This meant that Frank was often kept from doing his electrical and painting work because of the conditions inside the house. I would be working on some ministry email or something, barricaded in one of the only rooms safe from the dust when Frank would walk in, fresh from an encounter with Adam.

“How you doing, Frank?” I would ask.

“Great!” he would say with an exaggerated smile, right before silently giving me an “I’m losing my mind and can’t possibly go on like this” face.

So much for the work building camaraderie. Even worse, the dust was covering the floors so thick that to get it out we had to bust holes in some of the walls so that we could use a hose to flush it all out. We’re supposed to be fixing this place up, I thought to myself as we drilled a fist-sized hole at the base of the homeschool room wall, not punching more holes in it. Maybe my bleeding-heart, idealistic, risk-prone tendencies had gotten the better of me in agreeing to let Adam do it in the first place. In the end, the work took three times longer than we thought it would.

But the walls. The stones. They came to life.

The two ugly bubbling and disintegrating plaster walls had been transformed into the most beautiful parts of the entire house. They were now two accent walls consisting of stones that shone in grays, rusty reds, pale oranges, and slate blues. The larger of them graced one side of our homeschool room, a perfect addition to a space that was soon to be overflowing with kids, books, Legos, and artwork. Adam and I loved that my kids would get to learn math and reading and Bible around that big, solid, colorful, stone wall.

When it was finished, everyone loved the end result. Even those who thought the whole project was crazy, even those who couldn’t bear to work with Adam and made fun of him because of his quirks and crazy ideas. You couldn’t deny it. The walls were stunning. Each of us had to admit that the one with the mind that wasn’t completely working correctly had been the only one able to look at something so ugly and see its true potential. And not only see its potential, but also realize its potential with long, sweaty, dusty hours chipping, grinding, and polishing.

I enjoy reflecting on what Adam did with those walls. Even when his mind was in a dark and confused place, the possibility of bringing beauty out of brokenness brought him to life and gave him purpose and focus. It brought him back to his friends for a short time. It even got him some money so he could do the honorable Central Asian adult son thing and help his parents (whom he lives with) pay some bills. In that dusty project, the image of God in a very broken believer shone briefly but powerfully, like a shaft of light unexpectedly breaking through a towering Kentucky storm front.

And it’s no overstatement to say that Adam’s work on the walls reflected the image of God. God is, after all, in the process of resurrecting – not broken down and decrepit walls and houses, but a whole world in this condition. His mind sees what the rest of us so often fail to see, how sinners can be transformed into saints through the mess of sanctification, how the beauty of the coming resurrection will make all of the suffering and sweat required to get there worth it. In our lives, he’s chipping off the old, leprous plaster, restoring a beauty in us that we lost long ago – and making it even more stunning than it was in the beginning.

I’m so glad I took the risk and let my friend tear up those walls. He claimed he could see something in them, what they could become. He was right. I’m so glad that God sees something in us, in me, what we can become. And that he relentlessly keeps up his transforming work.

p.s. Adam is doing great these days. After the initial breakthrough a couple years ago, God mercifully continues to give him a measure of healing from his paranoid schizophrenia. Adam has recently led a doctor friend of his to the Lord and has been bringing him to church with him regularly. Keep praying for him.

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*names changed for security