Show Ready

"Show Ready", the term in real estate used to describe a home "staged" and ready to be listed.  As a once eager listing agent, I have had the fun of sitting across the table from clients and walking them through the ins and outs of a "show ready" home.

As we put our own home on the market this past week, I found myself doing those things ... culling out clutter,  moving items from rooms to make them look larger, taking everything off the counters, fixing and repairing anything around the house that had been on the bottom of the "honey do" list for too long, touching up paint, dusting fan blades, changing air filters, and cleaning cleaning cleaning.  It's time to show the world just how perfect it is!

What's the point of a show ready house?  A staged house?  To sell it!  We want the buyer to fall in love with what they see and choose our home over the hundreds of other homes in the area.  We put away our clutter and anything that represents the real life lived inside the walls.  There is no way we'd want to show our filth, our dust and piles of laundry.   We fix everything that has broken or damaged, remove anything unwanted and then as we list the home ... we tell the whole world just how wonderful it is.  And P.S.  if you are reading this and looking for a wonderful house - ours is.  Send on that  buyer wink wink

Getting a home "Show ready" can be exhausting, but the reality is ... keeping that way is even more so.

As I put away kids shoes, toys and re-wiped the counters and checked every last room before leaving for church yesterday it made me think "hmmmm, this is sort of like my life on many levels.   I  work so hard for the world to not see my clutter, my broken pieces and my dirt.   I'm not the only one.  No --- I can spy it on many of the faces of the beautiful woman so perfectly dressed inside the walls of my church, my bible studies and small groups.  We put on a facade and let the world think we are simply *perfect*.  I mean, who would want us if we are full of clutter, unclean and are full of broken parts?   We want the world to think we are wonderful.  We want the world to "Buy into" all we have to offer.

But you know what ... being "Show ready" is exhausting!!  

Ya know, when that buyer buys this house - they're going to fill it with their clutter.  It won't look like the model home each day that it does right now.  It will get dusty.  The bathroom counters won't shine and the mirrors won't look perfect every day.  Things will break along the way that need fixing.  When the doors to that home close, life will be lived ... a life full of brokenness, ups and downs.   Why?  Because we aren't perfect.  We are sinners full of imperfections.   Their is no truth to a "Show ready" life.

Then why do we do this?

Condemnation and Judgment?  We want the world - our friends - to like us.  We think, if they really know who I am, they might not.   What if they knew all the clutter I had in my life?  Would the really want me?

But Jesus told us this,

"Do not judge or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plan in your own eye?  How do you say to your brother, "let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the plank from your brother's eye.  

Ironically, as I showed up to church on Sunday - guess what the message was.  Yep, you guessed it - There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!  HAHA.  I guess the Lord was preparing me for my lesson.  Scott, my amazing pastor talked of this very thing - judgment and condemnation.  He used that scripture above to remind us, it's not for us to judge.  There is no condemnation for those of us in Christ.

Romans 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me FREE from the law of sin and death"

If I (yes, pointing out my own plank here) didn't judge others, then I also wouldn't worry about judgement.  I know and think that others are "judging" me, because often - gasp - I find myself doing the same.  Oh stop it!  I'm not alone.  You do it too!  You do it the minute you begin to compare yourself.  The minute you covet what another has.  The minute you grow envy because he/she has something you *think* you deserve.  So often our judgement grows from a place of envy.  So often, our judgement grows from a place where we think "our way" is the right way.
However, it comes ... there is no place for it.

Here's a wake up call!  We weren't made to be "show ready".

Show Ready is exhausting!  Let's just get back to life and living already!

Want to see my perfectly spotless home.  Hurry ... check it out.  I'm thinking by next week, my buyer's looking might find a note that says "Sorry, life happened in here today".