MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE

I suspect if there is any validity to the cliché, ‘we learn from our mistakes’, there have been some periods of my life when the learning curve was exceedingly steep, filled with intense educational moments.

For some months I had been laboring in my ‘spare time’ to build a second bathroom in our home. The eight of us had lived in our ‘getto’ home (I left the H out of the word because I was knocking the ‘H’ out of this 5000 sq. ft. monster) for seven years, making do with one bathroom. Having only one bath with all those bodies was quite an education also, but that will be a story which will have to be told in its own time.

I was very pleased that I had finally completed the second bath and all that was lacking was the laying of the linoleum. It was at that stage of the project that I finally got around to hooking up the water into the bathroom. When I turned on the faucet I was greeted with a miserly flow of water dripping from the tap. To my horror I soon discovered that I had plenty of water collecting in various locations within the finished walls. The next four days were spent in a maddening vicious cycle of discovering leaks, fixing leaks and repairing the walls and flooring in our now twice built bathroom. I hope some of you are able to appreciate the remarkable dedication I was demonstrating in the pursuit of learning.

I don’t believe it requires a very vivid imagination to conjure in your minds the numerous ‘you should haves’ which were freely expressed by family and friends who appointed themselves as sidewalk superintendents…

Having personally suffered through the frustrations and anxieties of building the ‘twice built bathroom’, I don’t feel it essential to further expose my ignorance by detailing the many places I went astray. I am sure it will be sufficient to mention that as I was driving in the last nail while replacing the floorboard, rejoicing in the fact that I had finally found and fixed the last leak, that the nail found the PVC pipe and the floorboard had to be ripped up and replaced for the third time. For some unknown reason, decades later, whenever that bathroom is spoken of by anyone in our family it is referred to as the ‘damn’ bathroom. Personally, I will continue to call it the ‘twice built bathroom’ or the ‘blue bathroom’.

Many Centuries ago a wise and righteous king in a long forgotten land in the Americas by the name of Benjamin admonished his people “that all things should be done in wisdom and in order.” (Mosiah 4:27) Hopefully, having built one bathroom twice will be enough ‘education through hard knocks’ to give me the understanding that it is wise to connect, and test a plumbing system before sealing all the pipes inside of walls and floors.

Oh, that the proper order of all of life’s lessons were so easily learned and could be repaired with only a few minor adjustments!

Oh, that we might be wise enough to glean the wisdom of the ages, so that the pangs of discovering and fixing a disordered life might not be needed to be suffered personally by all!

Oh, that we might be wise enough to stay within the bounds of the order which has been tested and proven to be true!

Oh, that the joy of the orderliness of our Father’s House might not be extinguished by unwise decisions made hastily!
I strongly feel that as it is with twice built bathrooms, so it is with life:

Pre-learning the purposes of life will give understanding as to how we should order our progressive steps.

Orderliness in life’s phases will help eliminate frustrations and anxiety and will lead us to fulfilling our appointed purposes in life.

By orderly, sequential moving though the experiences of life we can grow ever closer to our Heavenly Parents and thereby fulfill life’s main purpose which is that we might have joy.