The Renovation of a Bathroom Fan

Our master bathroom isn't much of a "master bathroom." It used to be shared between two rooms before losing a door and being elevated in status. Yet change always brings about unintended consequences, and our tiny bathroom is a bit of a damp cave without the air passing through from multiple rooms. Someone, at some point, tried to improve the air situation with the addition of a bathroom fan—just the wrong kind. When we bought the house, a beautiful hunter ceiling fan hung in the middle of the room, happily circulating the damp air and ensuring you were cold whenever you got out of the shower. Now nearly three years into our occupancy, the lack of ventilation has led to spots of mold starting to form on the ceiling. It was a problem and it needed to be fixed. For reasons which I probably should speak to a therapist about, I find myself incapable of paying someone to do my home projects and dutifully purchased a retrofit bathroom ventilation fan from Lowes this week. All I needed to do was remove the old fan, cut a hole in the ceiling, rewire the new fan, shove it into the hole and voila! As with all my projects, I was confident it could be done quickly.

This confidence is really an expression of insanity as—as my wife will attest—no home project to date has ever finished on time. The bathroom fan was no different (I really should have Luke 14:28 tattooed on my hand). The old fan came down just fine, but somehow it sat directly underneath a joist rather than next to one. Our ceiling was not drywall but thick plaster, and the wires were too short for simple rewiring. My quick evening project resulted in several evenings hanging upside down over a rafter in the attic fighting fiberglass insulation trying not to drop a drill through the ceiling.

Sometimes change has to happen, but rarely is it easy or enjoyable. The problem with retrofitting is once you get behind the surface you discover all the various, and sometimes dangerous, ways that the people before have done their work. Nothing is consistent. Materials are never standard. Odd items get repurposed and the convenience of the moment can become the headache of the future. And yet, everyone was simply doing the best they could at the time.

I think becoming more like Jesus—that process of discipleship or spiritual formation—can often feel like retrofitting a house. Changes are rarely made until they have to be, and once we start getting below the surface we discover all sorts of adaptations and compensations that have allowed us to keep functioning but resist new ways of being. As Dallas Willard notes in his book Renovation of the Heart, "Christians generally only find their way into [the] divine life slowly and with great difficulty, if tat all" (p.10). And so, as we seek to be with Jesus and to be like Jesus and to do what Jesus did, let's be honest—change is hard, but often necessary. When you get behind the walls or peel back the layers, the problem that needs to be addressed is rarely the problem on the surface. Change will almost always take longer than you think it should. And of course, having help—the professional kind with doctors and therapists and pastors, and the relational kind with family and friends—is always better than just doing it alone.