Day 429: This is the house that Jack built....

Granted, this may not look like much, in this picture, but seeing these "sticks" made my heart swell---like the Grinch, it grew, and grew, and grew. I don't really know who "Jack" is, or why he decided to build a house. No. When I look at this picture, I see the house that God built. Okay, obviously he isn't done yet, but that's just the point, isn't it?

When I uprooted my little family and moved to Temecula, we were all broken vessels. My children had suffered through a painful divorce, parents who could no longer be civil to one another, a father who had decided that it was best if he was out of the picture for a while, and a mother who had no clue who she really was, or where she was going. To make matters worse, they were being torn from their grandparents, the only stable force in their lives, and away from their friends. The final icing on the cake was that their mother married someone new---someone who would hold them to high, perhaps seemingly unreasonable expectations, and then dig his heels in when they resisted.
That is a lot to ask of young children.

So, Ron and I bought a home. It was a dream home by our standards....lovely views, cul-de-sac, and affordable. It was the absolute best we could do with what we had. It was enough. It was the beginning of life as we know it.

Nine years later, here we are. No more broken vessels. And we are buying a new house---one that is under construction as we speak.

Here it is today.

My daughter believes this house is symbolic of what God has done with us over the past nine years. He turned us into a family. She shared this quote from C.S. Lewis, which I believe says it all:

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seems to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis.


This is our palace---For now. Symbolic of God's work with our family so far.

I can't wait to see it finished.