This time last year, our family was in a very difficult place. Last Thanksgiving, Chris had an episode on the way to my parents’ and slept through most of the day. The meltdown started as we drove down the Buckman. When we arrived at the house, I sent the girls inside and Chris’ dad and I watched him short circuit. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. Neither of us knew what to do. It was strange and scary. I felt like I was watching him lose his mind, and I was trying to catch the pieces to push them back inside.
What a difference a year and a miracle can make.
My heart has been through quite an overhaul this year. I’ve always known that God was set on making my heart into a spacious place for Him to live. I knew right away that He’d made His home there, and I found out very quickly that the tearing down of walls and repiping were necessary. But to be honest, I thought that at this point in my life the remodeling was further along…maybe almost done. I thought perhaps it was just redecorating from here on, and yet it seems like maybe we’re taking on a whole new project that I didn’t even know existed. The rooms seem unfamiliar and the halls roughly unfinished. The work of it has left a mess that covers everything. As far as I can tell, there is nothing grand about any of these additions. At first, I was excited about what they could be. I had high expectations, but now I feel like all I’ve got to offer Him is a hovel. Sometimes I feel like an abandoned castle sitting on a hill all alone. The kind that once threw great parties and housed many but now sits eerily in ruin all by itself.
The tension between a miracle and a mess is wide and often painful. I have never doubted the miracles in my life or the Miracle Worker. There is nowhere I can go from His presence. There is nowhere I can flee from spirit. I have been on the wings or the dawn and settled on the far side of the sea. His right hand has always held me fast. I don’t doubt Him, but if I’m being completely honest, I do fear the end of this project will be disappointing. I struggle to imagine a beautiful reveal anymore.
A fresh wind showed up this morning and I heard the Holy Spirit whisper: “The best is yet to come. I’m adding a wing. You can’t see, because I’ve covered everything of value to protect it. Nothing will be lost. It’s all being preserved. Wait in the garden while I do the work.” Wow. He has a way with words. He has a way of breathing life into a heart struggling for air.
I choose to trust that no matter the end result, He is the One who uses the tattered pieces of my heart to change a hovel of a house into a temple. He is the God who chooses not only to live in my temple but also the hovel while it’s under construction. I believe by faith that He’s taking any semblance of a castle, that is meant to insulate and exalt, and creating a better temple…a place of communion and worship. Because that’s what He does. While we’re focused on the outside, He’s always looking inward. His ways are always higher and most often completely different than we would have done it. But “so is [His] word that goes out from [His] mouth: It will not return to [Him] empty, but will accomplish what [He desires] and [achieves] the purpose for which [He] sent it” (Isaiah 55:8-11). His Word is good and reliable. His Word is full of promises that I can trust. I stand on that today.