My home is a construction zone. Every nook and crevice of it feels out of sorts and honestly, it is making me crazy! I know their is a beautiful end in sight and this is simply a means to the end and so we press forward ... living in chaos.
As I have been watching the past few weeks all the work go on, I realized that my life on the inside is not much different than what it is on the outside these days.
The Lord has a few themes going on in my life this year. One has been to simply SURRENDER! That's a toughy for a girl who struggles with control issues. Really ... surrender? I am working on this daily. Some days I am better at it than others.
A second theme in my life is "Identity". This one goes back as far as I can remember. At 36, he's still constructing me here. Identity that's a toughy too!
We're adding closets, built in bookshelves and a door in our once "playroom". It is a messy job to say the least.
The closets were framed out and slowly we could began to see the shape of our plans take form. Next came the sheetrock. That one was a doozy. Lots of cutting was involved and the mess it made was horrid. Dust, flying dust!
I think I have been the same. I came to know the Lord in 1996. He built my framing then and you could begin to see the structure of the plans he was putting into place. Over the next 5 plus years, the construction was messy for sure! Battling an eating disorder (yes, I'm that transparent ... I have nothing to hide and Victory to claim), the sheetrock construction was horrid. He did a lot of sawing away and just like our own project, just when we thought we were making progress, we realized we hadn't wired for the lights. UGH, the lights! Cutting more sheetrock out, re-wiring and re-installing took us more than a week off our schedule. The same went for me during those 5 years. On the days that I thought I was coming along, he'd begin to sculp me and re-wire me some more causing all sorts of dust!
The cabinets have been installed in the room and the paint is on the walls now. It's really beginning to take shape but you can't quite move in. We still lack trim work, doors, closet interior work and some painting. There is such progress being made and we are so so close to the day we can finally move all our stuff that is cluttered in all the rooms back into it's home. It's beginning to take on it's new identity as a "bedroom". But, just as that begins to happen ... we take a little detour. The doors aren't in. Nothing to install yet ...
Yep, we decide to add some crown molding downstairs while we await the doors to come in. Oh my gosh, you should now see the house. All that cutting and sanding again is making it really dusty and my house is now a total construction zone. Upstairs was just starting to take shape and then we go and add all this.
Looking back over the past 13 years, I can see that I too have been much the same. I've come a long way. You can see my shape. I still lack some trimming out and painting. You for sure can't call me done ... I still have some work to do. But I was and am on my way. I recently heard someone say once "The Lord is less worried about where you've been, or where your are and more concerned about what you are meant to be". Beautiful. A new bedroom, crown molding, upgrades. That's where we're meant to be.
Identity
Then ... a trial came. No joke, I call it a trial and it was for sure one in the grand scheme of my construction. Full of prosecutors and witnesses alike, I sat in a room and the enemy began to do a little detour in my progress. Identity. I listened intently as some pretty hard and hurtful assaults were thrown my way. The dust was flying! I literally had to sit on my hands and ask the Lord to close my mouth from what I wanted to say back in my flesh. He did. He was present! Identity As the enemy who knows me so well sat on my shoulder that night, he whispered "your not worthy, your not welcome, your not loved, your worthless". He added "they can't hear you, they don't want to see you and they don't want to know you. The don't care about your Identity". UGH ... the agreements all over again. Just as the Lord had made so much progress in my life, the enemy totally threw a detour in the plans. The enemy was creating a mess that night. The dust was flying! What I didn't realize was that just like my "Crown" molding that would make such a beautiful finish on that second job ... the Lord too had his own finish ahead. He was and is still at work. Identity
As I drove away that night, I wept in tears. Big, ugly, snotty, tears! I was a mess! I felt worthless, unloved, unheard, not understood. I wanted to crawl out of that house. I wanted to hide. Disappear.
The dust was awful!
I got to a light and sat. Turning on the radio, the Lord said "look at that crown". Identity
The song played and these are the words he spoke to me!
Beautiful lyrics
Days will come when you don't have the strength
And all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart
They'd see so much
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful
Praying that you have the heart to fight
Cuz you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
But they are nothing in the shadow of the cross
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful
Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You're the one He madly loves
Enough to die!
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
In His eyes
You're beautiful!
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful!
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful!
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful!
You are treasured
You are sacred
You are His
Oh man, I wept! This was hard. Really hard. But he was there, even in the midst of that detour, he was there. It may have been an ugly mess in that home, but his crown would be so much better than the dust that was flying around!
So, now, I sit. Listening.
A friend told me after that night to ask the Lord what words spoken to me that night were from him. She told me to go and write everything down I remembered and then ask him ... "What do you want me to take away". That's hard. I did.
She then asked that I would pray. "Lord, whatever isn't from you, I ask you to help me forget, and whatever is from you ... I would hear, receive and know".
I am.
I can tell you, much of the words spoke to me that night I can't even remember. Some still haunt me. Some I know as untruths still eat at me. I will confess, I am bitter. I lack trust. I can't sweep it under the rug and forget. I remember the tones. I remember the faces. I remember the dust! UGH, so much dust!
Much of what the Lord has done in me so far is evident. But many days, he has to cut out places he's already built and go in and re-wire me. I am still far from perfect though if you look in some places, you'll see that I have (a) "Crown". Some days it's dusty. Some days there is a lot of progress made while others, not so much! Some of the projects take a lot of time. Some days, it's frustrating and others, I get a glimpse of the Identity he is creating in me. Beautiful.
If you want to be my friend (and come into my house), I should definitely tell you this first:
Warning, I am a construction zone!!
