BUILDING HOPE

Sometimes, when the piles of pulled up carpet and peeling plaster would take over every inch of space, I would sit right down in the middle of the dust and cry.

________________

Some things choose us. Without thought or manipulation they appear in our lives not simply to teach us, but to awaken us to a purpose imbedded within.

I remind myself in this transformation season that I have always been the one who finds the beauty in the mess, the breaking down and putting back together, the uncovering hope in the hopelessness.

The discovery of the woman I am in this season came when I was just a child—twenty-three, newly married with this naïve fantasy of a life streaming down like sunshine and through the mullioned windows of the tiny 1906 Bungalow we had chosen as our first nest.

Though I was completely unaware of what would follow, this was the first in a succession of twenty-three homes we would nurture into their best possible version of themselves.

My life’s purpose was unearthed in the scrapping off layers of plaster, pulling up floors and tearing down walls, sleeping amongst ladders and buckets of paint, then washing off decades of dust and debris outside under the hose.

In those early months of our new marriage, I discovered what I was made of…and for. And this glimmer of revelation began to emerge—that there is nothing like the satisfaction of bringing something broken and neglected back to life.

My life has been a stream of gutting seasons—
Hands blistered with determination,
My heart falling head over heels for what others reject,
Seeing potential in the impossible,
Pushing through what is to create a beautiful what next.

I am in a new gutting season. This time the interior I’m transforming is the one within. 
How remarkable that every renovation—
the unrelenting labor,
the pushing through the pain—
was preparation for the reconstruction of me.  

This is the knowing that I cling to when I am daunted by what’s ahead:

There exists no enduring beauty without little pieces of who we are laid down and sacrificed.

What we long for isn’t something that simply happens but something revealed in and through the hard work.
Little progressions. One wall down and then the next.
The transformation is happening in all of us.
Even if there seems to be no evidence.

NOTES:

Nine months ago, after eight rounds of chemotherapy and an eighteen-month remission, my cancer numbers began to climb.

After being told multiple times by oncologists that the best they could give me was five years, I determined there had to be a better way.

That better way for me is taking a Metabolic approach to cancer, adhering to a strict nutritional program, eating no more than 20 carbs per day. Fasting, coupled with intensive alternative modalities, has been my lifeline and over the past 27 months I have completely transformed my way of life.

There is no one Journal entry that can contain all that has transpired.The fuller story can be found by reading multiple entries I’ve published along the way.

The essential message is this—the purpose of every word is to share  my life experience in a way that intersects yours—so that we uncover together how to live a beautiful life…no matter what comes.

This week I am so excited to share extraordinary news…My cancer markers, for the first time, have dropped within normal range.

What we long for isn’t something that simply happens but something revealed in and through the hard work.

In the hard work, God meets us there.

He delights in our endeavors.

He is for us, not against.

His grace covers a mountain of our imperfections.

He is the innovator, renovator,

The original CARPENTER, the builder of every good thing.

And I am in awe.

RELATED POSTS I THINK YOU WILL ENJOY
https://www.sanctuaryliving.life/reframing/ 

https://gofund.me/3dccb821