Under Construction

There are times in life when we fall into a predictable, easy stride. You wake up, you fix your coffee, you head out the door to work (or in my case, to the dining room table :)) and when 5:00 hits, you jump back in the car, head to whatever evening activity is on the agenda, then finally head home to crash only to start the whole day over again in another 6-8 hours. In some ways it may be boring, but in other ways it's comforting. You know what tomorrow brings with minimal surprise and that has some sense of reassurance to it.

And then there are the other seasons...

The seasons where everything starts to change - maybe just little things that happen a day at a time or heaven forbid, in one fatal moment. Your car breaks down, your company starts laying off people, a family member becomes ill, you lose a loved one, your rent goes up, your salary goes down...the list goes on and on. Oftentimes it's that feeling of "when it rains it pours" and it appears that everything is falling apart at once.

I've experienced it often and witnessed it even more. It seems like an inevitable part of the journey of life. It reminds me to tell people often how I feel about them - because you never know what tomorrow brings. It reminds me to live in today, because we're not guaranteed tomorrow. It reminds me that I am not in control, but so grateful that I know the One who is.

In the past few months, God has been removing pieces from my life one at a time and I'm like a kid holding on to my blankie...just asking to keep a scrap of it because I'm unsure how I could possibly function without the security. If you would have asked me about being fully freelance at any point over the past 3+ years my response would always be "it keeps me close to Him" because that is the absolute truth. I never know what things will look like from month-to-month, but I have loved watching Him provide every single time. Even in that, there has always been a little bit of "predictability" with certain clients and whatnot, but just when I start to get too comfortable...God likes to shake things up :).

I've been watching this happen in my life recently in many areas and in various friends' lives as well and while having a conversation with a friend recently, God gave me this picture...

He gave me a picture of an old house. It had stood for a long time and had many stories to tell, but it was no longer a good home. It had drafty windows, old wiring and although the foundation was solid, it had run its course and it was time to say goodbye. So Jesus, as the Great Carpenter, started tearing down the old house one piece at a time. It was painful to watch as it was the only home I'd ever known, but I had to trust that He had a better plan. There were moments where I panicked and wanted to stop the demolition - but once you begin tearing something down, you can no longer go back to it...there's no where to go but forward. I asked to see the blueprints, but He just smiled and said, "Trust me, I only build beautiful things." So I stepped back as everything familiar was taken away and watched as He started construction on something new.

It's hard to fully understand what something looks like when it's just 2x4's and lots of nails, but building something of great quality takes time and patience, and oftentimes to build something new, something old has to be torn down first. I'm still in the "under construction" phase and as with anything, I would love to know His "estimated time of completion", but I know through the process God is building a deeper level of trust and intimacy with Him. It's also beautiful to watch something take shape out of simple materials...to watch a Master Carpenter build something you can't even imagine.

I still have moments where I dream of going back to that "old house" and all of its familiar comforts, but every time I do, God quietly whispers in my ear...

 "Trust me, I only build beautiful things."

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You take two steps forward and three steps back
On a journey of a thousand miles
And you cry and you pray
But you know at this pace you never will arrive

Well I know in your heart you believed from the start
God had a purpose He knit you together for
But life has pulled at the seams
And you’re unraveling
And you can’t hold it together anymore

But God will, He will finish what He started
No thread will be left unwoven
Nothing will be left undone
Every plan and every purpose
That He has will be accomplished
And God will finish what He’s begun

And it may feel like 40 long days in a hard driving rain
Or 40 years in a dry desert sand
But when He’s finished we will SEE
A beautiful tapestry
And know that nothing has been wasted in the end

Oh, and God will, He will finish what He started
No thread will be unwoven
Nothing will be left undone
Every plan and every purpose
That He has will be accomplished
And God will finish what He’s begun

And we’ll stand as the ones completed
By the miracle of His love
We’ll sing of His goodness and sing to His glory
As we tell the story of how

God has, He has finished what He’s started
Not a thread will be unwoven
And nothing will be left undone
Every plan and every purpose
That He has will be accomplished
And God will finish what He’s begun

I know that God will finish what He’s begun

-Steven Curtis Chapman, "Finish What He Started"