When Construction Looks Like Destruction

The construction workers across from our house had no idea they were putting on a show for my kids. Call me a mom-portunist, but if the adventure wants to move in across the street, I say let’s bring a picnic and enjoy.

Over the last month we’ve watched various trucks and equipment transforming the lot from a wilderness of trees and underbrush, to a nearly cleared lot; the blank canvas of the home builder.

So much has changed, yet nothing has been built yet. And there’s so much work still do do: heavy rocks to relocate, rough trees piled like so many toy Lincoln Logs waiting to be moved, and an uneven lot, gouged with holes, hardly fit to host a firm foundation.

Yet this mess and violent upheaval is part of the rebuilding.

My own life feels a bit like a construction site lately, and perhaps yours does too. Saplings of dreams are being snapped while larger trunks- my comfort zones, that I thought would always be there- now lay with roots bare, no longer my refuge.

As a writer, my direction is shifting, and here my words seem to be flowing at a trickle rather than a stream. I’m standing precariously on the dreams I once thought concrete, trying to grasp the new vision God is moving me towards as a speaker and creative.

I’m entering a season of chaos with children home from school, knowing that precious time will give way to a new season with all my littles away full time in the fall. I’m letting go of the my former ministry definitions and destinations in order to let God stretch my boundary lines and create roles for me which (like the unbuilt house across our street) may not even exist yet.

But the construction doesn’t look pretty right now. As my eight year old quipped, while watching heavy machines devastate greenery, “They’re disturbing nature…”

So often the changes we face feel like a disturbance. We view the uprooting and rearranging as painful and we grieve our losses. “There goes that purpose, that path, that possibility,” we sigh.

Construction looks a lot like destruction first.

The uprooting may come as rejection of our idea or application; it may appear as a failure or a false start; perhaps the bulldozers in our lives are unforeseen circumstances or changes in our seasons. It’s the empty nest, the diagnosis, the relationship change, the move, the betrayal, the confrontation.

Sometimes wrong beliefs and attitudes must be snapped in two, but it still hurts. We’d rather leave the roots of our fears and insecurities unseen, underground, than dig them out and face them in daylight. But this is work that must be done.

Sometimes we need to grieve what’s gone and lament the loss of what could have been. Our deepest roots don’t come out clean; they disrupt the soil of our soul and leave a hollow ache behind.

Don’t dismiss the doubt and depression or wrestling- these are unlikely allies in God’s plan to clear our lives of the debris. We don’t prefer those chisels in our lives, but we can’t skip their sharp edges if we wish to change.

We can’t believe that the chaos is the end of the story. The mess is part of our process, CREATING A SPACE for the good foundation that God will build the next part of our story upon.

I don’t know where you are right now. Maybe as a graduate your life is brimming with wide open possibility and hope. Maybe you’re halfway through your life and wondering if it’s too late to change directions. Maybe you’re in a season of transition or change, trying to hold onto the parts of your life that are still intact while embracing the next season.

Perhaps you are sitting on a passion, gift or dream and are equally afraid of living a small life and of living the bold life God is calling you to.

All I know is that there’s hope for you, and we’re all under construction. Don’t be afraid of the mistakes and weird turns, the cost of the unknown, or the destruction before the re-creation.

Haven’t you heard? God is doing a NEW THING. And this construction is part of it.

See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
   and streams in the wasteland. – Isaiah 43:19, NIV

Speaking of construction- you may notice some changes in my website over the next few months as I prepare for the new journey of speaking God is leading me towards. Thank you for your patience as I process what this site and this season are for.