I spent a few days in my home town last week. As is the case whenever I visit, it seemed like nothing had changed – our old house, church, school and neighborhood were comfortingly the same. Then again, everything had changed. I can’t get used to the college being gone or the football stadium sporting red paint instead of black.
One of the best recent changes in Le Mars is a new coffee shop, Habitue. It meets trio of travel requirements: great coffee, relaxing atmosphere, and free Wi-Fi. Friday, I spent a comfortable and delicious morning at Habitue. When I left the shop after a couple hours of productive work, the building across the street caught my eye. In the olden days, it was the Spurgeon’s Department Store. For the past few years, it’s been an antique mall, but these days, the front and side walls are hard-pressed to remain upright.
“What happened?” I asked my cousin.
She explained that Wells Blue Bunny (yes, my home town is also home to Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream) purchased the building to house an ice cream parlor and museum. “But when they gutted it,” she went on, “the roof and the back walls collapsed. Now they’re in litigation, trying to determine who’s at fault – the engineering firm that said the structure could safely be gutted, or the contractor for doing the work incorrectly.”
For some reason the building, propped up with the help of wooden braces and trees visible through the glassless second story windows made me happy. This evidence of man’s intentions gone wrong comforted me to no end.
See, lately my inadequacies have confronted me daily – even hourly. Book sales are dismal and nothing I do boosts them. That means the parents who need the encouragement the book gives aren’t being encouraged. They are struggling alone, which breaks my heart. I have failed to complete the work God gave me to do.
But the building says that I’m in good company. Wealthy men and women in charge of big companies, with access to large sums of money and the advice of experts fail, too. Their dreams collapse. Their best efforts aren’t good enough. The building, working so hard to stay upright on main street in my home town, reminds everyone who walks by that someone tried. Someone took a risk. Someone tried to effect change.
“And so did I.” I whisper while opening the car door and placing my computer bag on the passenger seat. “So did I.”
