Extravagant Gift

Extravagant Gift

So I don´t normally cry. In the past decade I can think of, at most, three times when I cried. Two were extreme life circumstances and the third was at the ending to the movie "My Life as a House". Totally unprepared and overwhelmed by the feeling of justice being done (or at least attempted) at the end of this movie. Sure, occasionally my eyes well up with tears when something particularly touches me, but normally I sniffle a little bit and that is the end of it.

Well, this week Lori and I watched "Extreme Makeover: Home Addition" (2 episodes, back to back). If you have not seen it, the basic premise is as follows. An applicant family sends in a video of why the would like this show to come to their house and help them out. The EM crew reviews the videos and then finds someone with and extreme problem and then uses design to make their house better for the families particular situation.

So, I started watching the first one and the story of the family touched me. Then when I began to see the design crew fixing up the house to help a girl who was allergic to the sun, I began sniffling and having the watery eye thing. They could have just put a coating on all of the windows of the house to protect her from the sun, but they went above and beyond what any normal person would expect.

They made a series of changes on the house that allowed the girl to be anywhere in her house without worry about the sun. Then they made a canopy around the house so that the girl could go outdoors. It was beautiful and looked like something that you would build for a king. It was extravagant and over the top, beyond meeting the needs of the family. To top it off they installed solar panels so that the sun would now work for the family instead of against them.

On the second episode, I thought that I would be better prepared for what was to come and would be able to handle it like a man. Nope. They showed the story of the family and I broke down and did not stop crying until the end (It was horrible, my nose was running and I couldn´t just pretend that I had something in my eye. Lori knew that I was crying). By the time I had finished watching two episodes I was exhausted from crying but I began to ask, "What was it about these shows that hit me so hard?"

Normally it seems like these type of shows are reserved to helping a rich person who is bored with their house design get a new house, car, clothes, motorcycle, etc, makeover. But this show was about normal people dealing with extraordinary circumstances. It was about every day people receiving an extraordinarily good news (we are going to gut your old house and make it entirely new). It was inspiring. It made want to be a blessing to others in the same way that the designers of the show were. It made me want to be a messenger of "Good News", hope and excitement to those who are beaten down by life. It made me want to jump in and grab a hammer and a paint brush and go to work. It was one of the closest things that I have seen to the way the Father lavishly loves the prodigal son. It was for me, being able to see a real life parable of an unmerited, undeserved extravagant gift. I can't imagine a better reason to cry!