Beauty from Ashes- A Redemption Story

This is a post that I wrote in 2016 after our house caught on fire. It is a beautiful thing to look back and see what God did through all of this horrible experience.

“Well… our house is on fire.”

Carter isn’t one for jokes and the statement seemed surprisingly calm. Too calm.

I heard him clearly, but still felt puzzled. Instinctively I replied,

“What? What did you say?”

 “Our house is on fire.”

Again calm, but a bit shakier. He didn’t have to explain. Somewhere in my gut I just knew… it was serious.

“Did you call 911?”

“Yes.” He stated.

“I’m coming.”

I was in my brother’s bathroom trying on some jeans at a rummage sale. It had been an uneventful day… until now. I ran outside and told my brother “I need you to drive me home. Now. Our house is on fire.”

It took me less than a minute to be on my way.  As we drove on the back country road I saw the fire trucks a couple of miles behind. It was then that I realized we would beat them to our house. I couldn’t help but wonder what I was going to see when I arrived.

My thoughts were interrupted by my brother’s statement,

“Oh shit.”

I looked up and saw it…

The smoke.

It was a lot of smoke.

I had seen this sight a hundred times before, a pillar of smoke in the distance. I can never help but wonder what is causing it. I didn’t wonder this time.

I knew.

This was my house.

This was the house that we bought only five months ago.

This was the house that I had spent every weekend and many weeknights of the past 20 weeks working on. This was the house that we had just painted… and trimmed… and replaced doors… countertops… fans… lighting… and flooring. I had finally chosen my curtains and bedding and was finalizing room décor. This was our fixer-upper… that we were almost done with.

As soon as I saw the smoke, I put my face in my hands and began to sob.

How can this be happening?

This can’t be happening.

But it was.

As we arrived at our home I saw my husband and three sweet babies in our front yard watching our house burn. The flames were pouring out of our children’s playroom.  

As my brother pulled into our front yard, I opened my door and had my foot on the ground before the truck had even stopped.

My babies. I needed to hold my babies.

I ran up to them, hugged them, and thanked God for their safety.

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The firefighters pulled in and we said a quick prayer for them as they began to work. We watched as they quickly got the flames under control and made sure the fire was extinguished. It all happened so fast and quickly it was over.

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The fire was out.

I had never been in a house that had been on fire before. From the outside, I thought the loss would be isolated to one room... but I was wrong. I have heard the term “smoke damage”, but could not have imagined the extent of destruction it caused so quickly.

Our house was destroyed.

As I walked through the house, I couldn’t even process what I saw. There is no way this could be my house. My house was filled with natural light, light-colored walls, and white trim.

It was like I had walked into a nightmare version of my home.

Our normally bright house was a pit of darkness. Even with a flashlight, I could hardly see. The air burned my throat and I had to leave after only a few minutes inside.

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We all stood around for a bit and talked about how thankful we were that everyone was safe and how we all knew everything would work out.

Then one by one everyone said their goodbyes and wished us the best.

Carter and I didn’t know what to do.

What are you supposed to do?

So we just sat in our front yard on a stump, baffled, at what had just happened.

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What had just happened?

This fire had just demolished the last five months of our lives. And we weren’t just starting over, we were starting farther back than ever before.  

How did we get here? We have never been those people that wanted a “fixer-upper”; in fact, because of our lack of skills we tried to avoid it. But after two years of looking, we decided this house had the greatest potential to give us what we dreamed of.

We bought our house hoping we could handle the adventure of a remodel. We had almost done it. It was far from perfect, but we were proud of it. We were proud of it because we had put so much time and effort into it. Of course we still had a ton of projects to do, but we had our final *big* project scheduled for the following week.

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We have never worked so hard on anything.

All of our hard work was wiped away in about 20 minutes. 

...

The next morning, I was lying in bed and a scripture I grew up hearing came to my mind.

“To give them beauty for ashes…”

I have always loved the sound of these words. Very poetic and they paint a beautiful picture of the redemptive process. It got me thinking… redemption is beautiful, but to be truthful, the process of bringing beauty out of ashes is not easy.

 I find myself today with a giant opportunity, I get to bring beauty from ashes… literally.

This process will not just happen. It will cost me. I have had, and will continue to have, many opportunities to not bring beauty from this situation.

I can choose not to make the most of it.

But I won’t.

I will not allow this situation to steal any more from me than it already has

I am headed to Redemption.

I do not worry about the destination, but the journey overwhelms me at times. I know how costly it is to go on this journey. It is not fun, but it is worth it. Even though I would not have chosen this. I can do this.

I will do this.

I will release my expectations.

I will stand on my faith.

I will hold on to my hope.

And I will choose to love.

And then I will wait. I will wait and watch it all unfold.

Beauty is coming.

Just wait and see.

Do you know of anyone who is also in an overwhelming time of their life? Forward this to them and let us make beauty together!

What Is God Calling You to Do?

“Calling” is a big word.

Maybe you didn’t grow up in the Christian culture like I did, but for a girl who did, “Calling” is a word I heard a lot. “What is God calling you to do?” “What is your Calling?” “You must do the things that God has called you to do!”

So, “Calling,” what is it?

Your Calling is your unique purpose and destiny that God has put on your life. It is the dreams & hopes that He put in you that are your job to fulfill as you walk out your time on this Earth. It is a blend of several things. It is a combination of who you are, the things you will accomplish, and the overall impact/culture that you create while you are here.

Your Calling is filled with risks and unknowns. I wish I could tell you that the calling that God has on your life is filled with ease and joy. I wish that it could be described as skipping through a field of wildflowers to the end of a rainbow… that would be nice. I wish that your Calling was as simple as creating a goal and making it happen… but it’s not.

Your Calling is a blend of faith, hope, perseverance, determination, heartache, failure, embarrassment, a dash of success, and a whole lot of fulfillment.

Your Calling is quite dependent on your willingness to believe what God has told you more than the experiences that are proving otherwise. It is directly tied to your willingness to live out a combination of risk-taking in faith and disappointment-releasing through surrender.

The Call that God put inside of you is unique to you. There is no one else on this Earth that has the list of things to do that you have. You have a unique history, a unique set of gifts, talents, strengths, and unique dreams within you.

You are the only you, and that is why your responsibility to fulfill your Call is of the utmost importance.

Let’s break down your Calling into a bit more detail…

First, what are you good at? What brings you joy? What makes you excited? What lights you up? You need to think of several things, and you need to own them. I am not talking about simply things that you enjoy doing, what are the activities that you do on this earth that make you feel alive? These things are a vital part of your Call.

Second, what dreams do you have within you? Do you have a dream of starting a business? Running for government? Writing a book? Building a family? Experiencing an amazing marriage? Teaching? Building a house? Starting a non-profit? What are the things you would like to build? Create? Experience? These are all part of the Call of God on your life. He puts dreams within us & it is our job to take the risks to bring them to this Earth.

Lastly, what is the overall big picture you want your life to be about? What culture do you want to create? Who do you want to be? What kind of life do you want to live? Do you want to have a wildly adventurous life or perhaps, a steady & safe life? Do you want to live boldly or live wisely? How do you want to describe your life when you look back at it? This is part of your Call.

All three of these things are vital things that you need to clarify and understand about your life. You need to know what your strengths are, you need to know what you are building, and you need to know what Culture you are creating.

You need to move toward the Call that God has put inside of you.

This shouldn’t be an afterthought; in fact, you should wake up every day knowing exactly what you are doing in this season of your life and know exactly where you are headed. You should be going to bed very fulfilled and confident that you are living the life you were born for. You should be a person who responds to the whispers that God has put within you. This is the key to building your faith and ultimately becoming the person God created you to be.

Don’t wait, start today.

And don’t forget, the Earth is waiting for you to show up.

Want to go deeper? Listen to this podcast episode!

Learning to Be a Bully

I have been working on my ability to be a bully. I know what you are thinking, “Haley, it is not good to be a bully.” And for the most part, I agree with you.

I don’t believe in bullying people. Ever. I don’t believe in demeaning people and I believe that all people deserve to be valued.

However, this is an exception to that rule. In my opinion, this guy is the biggest bully I know and he deserves to be bullied in return.

In fact, he has probably tried to bully you too.

Do you know him?

His name is Fear.

To be honest, we weren’t always enemies. There was a time in my life that I actually thought we were friends. I trusted him to help guide me in my life. He would tell me what I should and shouldn’t do and I would obey. 

I thought he was protecting me.

I thought he was watching out for me and my best interest. I heard his concerns and I obeyed his commands. He ruled me.

Fear was the god of my life that I never realized I had.

I thought we were partners making decisions together until I recognized that I was never allowed to disagree with him. It was always his way or the highway.

The partnership I thought we had was actually a dictatorship.

He controlled me and he began to turn me into someone I never wanted to be. My life began to feel like it was slipping from my fingers. I was losing myself.

I had to take a stand.

So I did.

I put him in his place and told him how I felt. I wasn’t going to take his crap anymore. When I started walking away, he got mean. He began to taunt me and tell me that I wouldn’t make it without him.

He began to bully me.

How could I have ever thought this jerk was my friend?

He was not my friend.

As I continued to defy him, I was able to see his true intentions. All this time, I thought he was holding me back from death and he was actually holding me back from life.

His intentions were to take everything from me without me even knowing he had.

I was done with his manipulation. However, it wasn’t that simple. I was unable to get his voice completely out of my life, so I had to learn how to make choices for my life without considering his input.

To this day, when he tries to invite himself back into my life, I put him right back where he belongs.

In the corner. Out of my way.

We have a mutual understanding. He taunts me and I taunt him right back. He belittles me and I belittle him. We bully one another, yet I have learned that I hold all of the cards.

Every time he attempts to interfere with my plans, I look him in the eye and remind him that he resides in the corner of my life.

He is allowed to talk, but only because I haven’t quite figured out how to muzzle him yet.

To tell you the truth, I don’t even mind him in the corner so much. I like to look him in the face, tell him what I am going to do and then make him watch.

Fear is no longer my dictator, but he is merely a spectator to all of my awesomeness.

Finding freedom in facing my brokenness. Want to join? Sign-up through email! CLICK HERE!!! 

Learning to Fail

Recently, I was talking to Carter and was anxiously telling him about a failure. You know those moments that you are face to face with the inevitable fact that you have failed something or someone?

Ugh! I HATE those moments.

I do.

I was worked up and nervously talking away. When all of the sudden Carter stopped me, put his arms around me, looked me in the eyes and said two amazingly perfect words.

“Be Free.”

He continued to tell me that it was fine, that I was fine and that I had to learn to let these things go.

It was fine.

I was fine.

For the past decade of my life, I have been trying to learn how to fail and after ten plus years, I still don’t know exactly how to do it. Of course, I can fail. Failing is inevitable, but I am still learning how to fail well.

How can I still be here after so many years of believing in grace?

How is it possible that I am still so affected by my failure? Why are my limitations, mistakes, and misunderstandings so scary to me? I have come so far, but I still have a long ways to go.

In the past, when I have failed, I felt the need to cover up my failure and hide my mistakes. At the same time, I would defend my value as if it was something that needed defending. 

During my failure, there was always a little voice taunting me... What if my fears are true? What if my fail is a sign that I not only failed, but I am a failure?? But worse, what if I am a failure who is destined to fail forever?

What if I not only got it wrong but what if I am wrong?  What if I don't just make mistakes. What if I am the mistake? 

(insert tear.)

Several years ago, I became quite aware that my fear of failure could have the potential to steal my entire life from me. I rallied myself, gathered some peeps around me to help me stay on track, and I went forth into the world determined not to let my fear of failure steal from my life. 

I really don't enjoy failure. I am more of an enjoyer of success. Success is fun, but I don’t believe that we learn jack squat during our successes. Now our failures are a different story... our failures are full of opportunities.

Our failures show us our fears.

Our failures show us our weaknesses.

Our failures give us an opportunity to experience grace.

Do not get me wrong, I still do not enjoy failing, but I have learned to value the process. Learning to fail has taught me a lot about who I am and the fears that are within me. I have and will continue to fail. And that's ok.

We must embrace the role that failure will play in our lives.

Our goal should not be to not fail.

Our goal should be to learn how.

My fails still bother me at times, but no matter how hard I fall on my face I choose to be kind to myself. I evaluate my intentions and determine if they need any correction. If they do, I own it. When I struggle to have grace for myself, I ask someone to help me move forward without shame.

Perhaps the greatest change I have made is that I no longer act like it isn't happening. I face it so that I can learn from it. I choose to grow instead of choosing to remain the same. I own my issues. I own my mistakes. 

I own my failure.

I choose to heal and move forward fully knowing that I will fail again, but no longer allowing it to keep me from living the life I was meant to live.

Finding freedom in facing my brokenness. Do you want to join me?  CLICK HERE!!! 

Living the Dream, One Nightmare at a Time

If you would’ve asked me when we got married what our lives would look like in a decade I would’ve said something like this…

I saw Carter and I married with a handful of kiddos, both through pregnancy and adoption.

We would be living outside of a small town, with a bit of land and owning a pet or two.

We would have travelled the world.

 I would be staying at home with my kids, possibly working a day or two outside the home. I thought Carter would be working in the finance world and I hoped that he would enjoy his job.

Of course, I planned on being more in love with my husband than ever.

You want to hear something crazy?

 Every single one of the things that I hoped for my life is my reality.

However...

Even though so many wonderful things have happened, I can honestly say that in the past decade there have been so many things that I did not expect to be part of our journey.

I never expected to come home one day and find that someone had broken into our home. Stealing several thousands of dollars’ worth of memories.

I never expected to wake up one morning and realize my house was quickly becoming an island. We had minutes to get out of our house. One car already totaled from the water.

I never expected our house to catch on fire.

I never realized how many days would be dedicated to the broken appliances and a car that needs to go to the shop.

I never anticipated our dog getting hit by the car and the kitties running away.

I never expected Carter to lose his job after the recession hit.

I sure never saw the friendships that would be no longer.

I never expected to take it so brutally hard when we had our failed adoption.

I didn’t expect the whole parenting thing to be so challenging. I never expected so many tears to come with it, both from my children and myself.

I didn’t realize how many different seasons you experience as a married couple. The moments where you look into each other’s eyes and question one another’s actions, intentions or love. I never thought that I would have days where I really questioned the whole gig.

I never realized that there would not just be hard days… but there would be hard years.

You see, when I looked ahead at my life I saw all the moments of the mountaintops. I didn’t see the valleys.

I saw all of my dreams coming true… but I never realized that the same life that would make my dreams come true would be the very life that brought forth my nightmares.

My friends, life is both extremely wonderful and extremely difficult. We have moments on the mountaintops and moments on the valleys. I don’t think we need to fear the valleys, but I do think we need to understand that they will be part of our journey to the top.

If you find yourself in a valley today. Keep your head up. Try to find beauty right where you are. Where you are today, is not where you will always be, but where you are today is part of the journey to where you are going.

And that my friend, is a beautiful thing.

Would you like to read more about my views on relationships and life? click here.

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Home Sweet Home {One Year Later}

One year ago, today, our home caught on fire. 

Thankfully, it was not a total loss. Just the walls, part of the roof, our ceilings, insulation, cabinets, doors, windows, and a good chunk of our stuff. 

The home we had remodeled for five months quickly turned into a total gut job. Awesome. 

Fast forward seven months and we were able to move into our home again. This time everything was brand new and quite lovely. 

We moved back into our house the exact same week that we bought our house last year, the last week of April. How is that for coincidence? Haha. It was the week after I turned THIRTY. I told Carter that I have now been “given” a house two years in a row for my birthday, so I have a pretty high bar for next year. Haha! Actually, to be honest, the only thing I would like for my birthday next year is to NOT move into ANY house!

We are home and we are so very happy.

We are settled, our house is decorated and every box is unpacked. Our garage is even cleaned out. (And some people don’t believe in miracles!)

We did it.

Our home is finished and quite beautiful. Did you hear that? FINISHED! Who knew that we would ever say that?! 

It took us a LONG time to get here but we have arrived. We have had so many work days on this house, pre-fire and post-fire. 

When the day finally came to move in, we had the kids stay the night with their grandparents and we finished moving into our house without telling them!  Carter and I loaded the rest of our furniture and whatever I could fit into my van. (Why do I not think moving boxes are necessary??? Because I am an idiot. That's why.)

We unloaded our furniture, just the two of us, into our completely restored home. To be honest, we have dozens of people that would have been happy to help us with our FINAL move in, but it was therapeutic to do it ourselves. Well, for me at least. I loved bringing every single item into our home and deciding where it should belong.

We set up our furniture, made beds and set up the kids’ playroom. I wanted my kids to instantly feel at home when they walked in. No more being unsettled.

The next morning we brought them HOME. They were so surprised!  It was amazing.

Within ten minutes, Mayliss had found the nail polish and was going wild with it. (Not surprising.) And within thirty minutes, Shep had gone missing. Upon doing a quick search, I found him alone in his bedroom with his Army guys scattered everywhere.

My heart was happy.

We were home.

We moved home at the end of April and I took a break from my writing and Social Media to focus on my family and getting us settled back into our normal lives. Whatever normal is?

Each day as I have organized and decorated I have tried to process the past year of our lives.

What in the world happened?

Things did not go as we planned. That's what happened. We had a plan, but our plan was taken from us. Without notice we found ourselves with a different path. We had no choice but to accept this *new plan*, but the process felt very disappointing.  Funny enough, we actually became more excited with the new plan than our original one. Which is wonderful, but it did not make the experience any easier.

This past year was exhausting.

We had many moments of disappointment and discouragement. It was challenging and very stretching to feel so unsettled with our family of five for an entire year.

I have finally come up with the perfect word to sum up everything we went through this past year…

Life.

Life happened.

This is it. In all of its glory. Life brings us plans that we don’t want, but we have to take. I have learned that my life is much better if I choose to be appreciative of what I have instead of focused on everything I don't.

This life hands us things that we don’t expect and we didn’t ask for. We don’t get to pick what we are given, but we do get to pick how we play our hand. We may not always love what we have been dealt, but let's not forget to enjoy the game.

I will leave you with some pictures of our beautiful home...

Blessings my friends. -Haley

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Counting My Blessings

“The following is a guest blog by my mom, Shelly. My mom is an extraordinary woman. She has taught me how to fight for my life. Literally, everything good in my life would not have been possible if it weren’t for the things that she has taught me. I felt it very fitting to ask her to be a guest on my blog. I couldn’t help but be moved with tears when I read it. She is an inspirational fighter and I consider it my absolute privilege to have been raised by her. Enjoy. ”

— Haley

"Counting My Blessings"

The past five years of my life have been very difficult. I've been evaluating and asking myself how we've gotten through some of the hardest trials we've experienced. (Of course, besides the deaths of people we love that is a whole other category!) If I look over the past few years and focus on my disappointments I could come to the conclusion that life has really sucked. But the truth is, it hasn't.

Let me give you just a little background of where we've been...

I would consider us very blessed. I got married at 18 and my husband was 19. He stepped into a company that was started with family and it was very successful. Over the years, we acquired a lot… a lot of house, a lot of possessions and a lot of children. We had new cars and nice furniture, expensive clothes and a lifestyle of travel and fun. I never really had a budget… but probably should have!

I was able to be a stay at home mom and live the life of my dreams as I mothered my seven kids. We loved God, we were big givers and we were good people. I took care of my kids and we often opened up our home and took in other kids that needed a safe place.

Of course, in life there are many twist and turns so I will make this very long story short. Through many circumstances of life, family member deaths and a bad economy in February 2013 we lost pretty much everything we had acquired over 30 years of hard work and marriage.

Boom it was gone.

Our house, our company, our salary, our lifestyle was all taken from us. Our very hard fought fight to stay afloat had ended and we sat dumbfounded at what in the world was going to happen to us.

As I look back over that time I honestly don't know how we made it… but we did. It was absolutely overwhelming. I felt totally and completely unequipped to live this life with nothing. We felt too old to start over, but we actually had no other choice.

We live in a small town and everywhere I went I felt like literally all eyes were on me. It's quite the feeling when you are at your most vulnerable and you feel like everyone, real or imagined, is talking about your financial failures. 

Though, I didn't have much time to worry about that because my family was either going to sink or swim.

We still had a senior and sophomore in high school and a fourth grader living at home. My husband was exhausted and broken. There were days I felt like I was having to give him CPR on the boat deck while my kids were in deep water barely keeping their heads afloat. As I would breathe one breath into my husband on deck I would smile and yell overboard to my kids, "Don't worry, we're going to be fine, keep paddling, you're doing great!"

I felt gripped with panic and fear of what was going to happen to us.

I felt great pressure for me to be the stabilizing factor to all my family who looked to me to tell them everything was going to be ok. I had always played that roll in our family, but this time the stakes seemed really high. The truth is there were many times I was scared to death. It felt like the whole ship of this family would sink to the depths if I didn't keep myself together.

What do you do when you need to look brave, calm and in control, but you feel you are so ill-equipped and in the most uncharted territory of your lifetime?

For me, I only knew one thing to do. Pray. It wasn't like this was a new lifestyle for me. I am a praying woman, but it was a desperate kind of prayer.

 It was the kind of prayers that are whispered in the middle of the night and all through the day.

As always, my God was faithful to comfort me. In the beginning days I heard simple things like, "Breathe". I would simply stop and take a deep breath in. I would imagine I was breathing in peace and exhaling worry and fear. In the stillness of the night I would hear God say, "Everything is going to be all right".

I wrote the things that I had found out to be complete truths of God in my life.

1. God will never leave me or forsake me.

2. All things work together for good to those who love the Lord.

3. God has a plan for myself and my family.

4. God is faithful.

5. God loves us. (Even when we don't feel like circumstances are saying that.)

There were days I would have to read this list over and over just to get through the day. Each time, as I did this I found myself back at peace. It was the firm foundation I could come back to when I felt shaky. I felt like I had to be very diligent to do this daily and sometimes hourly.

Through this time, I learned some things from God and life that I believe are very foundational to help through times of crisis. After I became more stabilized I felt like I could begin to take some actions. These are some that helped me.

1. I had to purposely live in the moment.

Not just one day at a time, but literally one second at a time. No matter how hard it was I could not let myself be dragged from the moment I was living.  I could find peace there. There was no peace in the past of why or how this had happened. There was certainly no peace in the thinking of the future. How were we going to live with no income? Where were we going to live? How will we provide for our children? How will we get health insurance for our handicapped daughter? You know… those kind of “little” nagging questions that can weigh heavy on your mind!

2. I counted my blessings.

Every day I wrote down our blessings. That old hymn I was made to sing over and over in church came rushing back. "Please turn to hymn number 237, Count Your Blessings". So I did. Every single day I read over what blessing I had written down the day before. Then, I wrote down the new blessings that had come. Some days my blessings were big, miraculous and awe inspiring. Other days they were barely there… like, we were still alive!!

3. Lastly, I made an absolute choice to not feel sorry for myself. I would not allow myself to play the victim.

As I look back, I stand in amazement that we have always had what we needed as we needed it. We've had our needs met which is miraculous in itself, but more amazing to me is that we have not just survived we have thrived. It doesn't make sense, but that is just how God works!

 I have experienced joy on levels I have never experienced before. Peace is my companion in new ways that I have never had. Thankfulness and gratitude comes much more effortlessly.

Don't get me wrong, there are days when I call my close friends who have walked faithfully by my side through this dark, hard journey and I say overly dramatic statements that they know I don't mean.  I question how long this "blessed teaching moment" will continue and are tempted to throw a little temper tantrum.

Don't we all love these character building moments in this journey we call life? Not really.....except when I look at the person I've become and realize that God's plan really might be better than mine.

Who knew??

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Thriving Through Difficulty

I used to spend my life trying to stay on top of my problems. I used to try to avoid pain and difficulty. I used to find myself striving for perfection. Striving for happiness. No longer. I have now realized that this life is not about striving for perfection either within me or within my circumstances.

I believe that so many of us are missing our full potential of this life because our goal is to “be happy and avoid pain”. The problem with avoiding pain is that there are parts of the healing process that feel painful. Growing and learning will never be easy. If we try to avoid pain, we will deny ourselves the opportunity to truly heal.

Our problems aren’t the problem. Our problem is that we allow our problems to dictate our happiness. If our contentment is based on our circumstances, our contentment will always be at risk of being taken.

Our circumstances should not be given the power to take our peace.

We must not view our circumstances as the problem. We can easily spend days, weeks, months and years of our life striving to rid ourselves of problems. The issue with living like this is that no matter how hard we try, there will always be another problem at our door. Always.

We must stop viewing our difficulties as our enemy.

Our difficulties are not what keeps us stuck, our inability to grow is.

We must begin to understand that healing in this life will come at a cost. It will cost us something to grow. It will cost us to let go of our expectations and choose to enjoy the life we do have.

There is such beauty in difficulty. Our difficulty gives us the opportunity to heal. Our difficulty gives us an opportunity to choose beauty even when we don’t see it.

Our challenges give us the opportunity to choose grace.

Our fears gives us the opportunity to choose faith.

Our discouragement gives us the opportunity to choose hope.

When we struggle we are given the opportunity to choose things that we don’t feel. We cannot underestimate the value of this experience. In a world that says we should never deny our feelings, it is a very powerful moment when we realize the best thing we can do at times is to deny our emotions.

We must go on the journey to find peace. A peace that passes understanding and is not blown to and fro by every wind. We must become strong and find a firm place to stand. We must not allow ourselves to be controlled by our outward circumstances, but our inward strength.

We must find a way to soar above the storm. We must find a way to thrive during difficulty. We must. Our life depends on it.

Finding peace is what this life is about. If you haven’t found it…

keep searching.

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It Doesn't Hurt Us to Wait

During the first few days after our house fire I could not quite pin-point what I was most upset about. Before this, I always thought the most difficult part of a house fire (without injuries) was the loss of “stuff”, but for me the hardest part wasn’t the stuff. The stuff was just stuff.

Two weeks before it happened we had decided we would officially finish being in “remodel” mode. We had a long list of projects still to-do, but we knew it was time to settle in and begin to live life again. One more “big” project and then we would be done with the biggest parts of our remodel.

Like most of us, we have had to wait for many things in our lives. For us, this house represented so many of our dreams finally coming true. We have long desired to have a house in the country, with a little bit of land, the kids and the pets. In many ways, we felt like we had “arrived” somewhere we had been trying to get for the past ten years. Finally.

It was time to rest.

When our house went up in smoke I felt like more was taken from us than our stuff. I felt like I was watching both my future and my past go up in flames. This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wanted to be in my house. I wanted to be living my dream. I didn’t want to wait anymore.

 I wanted my dream now… not later.

 I felt like we had arrived at the finish line and someone was asking us to start the race back from the beginning. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do it all again. Did I even have it in me? Honestly, at first, I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know.

I knew that eventually everything would work out. I knew we would regain everything we had lost, but I knew it wouldn’t be today. It was the time that I felt we had lost and the time I felt we had to wait that seemed more than I could bear.

“It doesn’t hurt us to wait.”

I have probably said this a hundred times to my kids. But truthfully, at times, I am telling myself just as much as I am telling them. Why in the world is waiting so damn hard?

Waiting is simply being. Waiting gives us an opportunity to rest. But often times we don’t choose to rest, we choose to become restless. In the world we live in, waiting and resting are under-rated. Many of us don’t know how to rest and we don’t understand the value of it.

It is funny because I was looking forward to a season of rest and now I am in one. Of course, it’s not like I expected it to look.

Welcome to life, Haley, it is full of surprises.

Sure, my home is completely gutted… well… besides the room of ash. But hey, we have been given a wonderful place to live while we wait. We have had every single need met and more. We have been reminded that we have the most amazing people in our lives that have been here to support us through every step. We have each other. We are doing great.

I will now use this time as an opportunity to learn how to wait better and rest deeper. I am reminded again that my happiness in this life has little to do with my desires being fulfilled and everything to do with my willingness to appreciate what I have been given.

Sure, I have lost my house for now. But I’ll get it back.

Let me tell you though, I will not be waiting until then to

“live the dream”.

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Beauty from Ashes

“Well… our house is on fire.”

Carter isn’t one for jokes and the statement seemed surprisingly calm. Too calm.

I heard him clearly, but still felt puzzled. Instinctively I replied,

“What? What did you say?”

 “Our house is on fire.”

Again calm, but a bit shakier. He didn’t have to explain. Somewhere in my gut I just knew… it was serious.

“Did you call 911?”

“Yes.” He stated.

“I’m coming.”

I was in my brothers’ bathroom trying on some jeans at a rummage sale. It had been an uneventful day… until now.

I ran outside and told my brother “I need you to drive me home. Now. Our house is on fire.”

It took me less than a minute to be on my way.  As we drove on the back country road I saw the fire trucks a couple of miles behind. It was then that I realized we would beat them to our house. I couldn’t help but wonder what I was going to see when I arrived.

My thoughts were interrupted by my brother’s statement,

“Oh shit.”

I looked up and saw it…

The smoke.

It was a lot of smoke.

I had seen this sight a hundred times before, a pillar of smoke in the distance. I can never help but wonder what is causing it. I didn’t wonder this time.

I knew.

This was my house.

This was the house that we bought only five months ago.

This was the house that I had spent every weekend and many weeknights of the past 20 weeks working on. This was the house that we had just painted… and trimmed… and replaced doors… countertops… fans… lighting… and flooring. I had finally chosen my curtains and bedding and was finalizing room décor. This was our fixer upper… that we were almost done with.

As soon as I saw the smoke, I put my face in my hands and began to sob.

How can this be happening?

This can’t be happening.

But it was.

As we arrived to our home I saw my husband and three sweet babies in our front yard watching our house burn. The flames were pouring out of our children’s play room.  

As my brother pulled into our front yard, I opened my door and had my foot to the ground before the truck had even stopped.

My babies. I needed to hold my babies.

I ran up to them, hugged them and thanked God for their safety.

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The firefighters pulled in and we said a quick prayer for them as they began to work. We watched as they quickly got the flames under control and made sure the fire was extinguished. It all happened so fast and quickly it was over.

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The fire was out.

I had never been in a house that had been on fire before. From the outside, I thought the loss would be isolated to one room... but I was wrong. I have heard the term “smoke damage”, but could not have imagined the extent of destruction it caused so quickly.

Our house was destroyed.

As I walked through the house, I couldn’t even process what I saw. There is no way this could be my house. My house was filled with natural light, light colored walls and white trim.

It was like I had walked into a nightmare version of my home.

Our normally bright house was a pit of darkness. Even with a flashlight I could hardly see. The air burned my throat and I had to leave after only a few minutes inside.

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We all stood around for a bit and talked about how thankful we were that everyone was safe and how we all knew everything would work out.

Then one by one everyone said their goodbye’s and wished us the best.

Carter and I didn’t know what to do.

What are you supposed to do?

So we just sat in our front yard on a stump, baffled, at what had just happened.

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What had just happened?

This fire had just demolished the last five months of our lives. And we weren’t just starting over, we were starting farther back than ever before.  

How did we get here? We have never been those people that wanted a “fixer upper”; in fact, because of our lack of skills we tried to avoid it. But after two years of looking we decided this house had the greatest potential to give us what we dreamed of.

We bought our house hoping we could handle the adventure of a remodel. We had almost done it. It was far from perfect, but we were proud of it. We were proud of it because we had put so much time and effort into it. Of course we still had a ton of projects to do, but we had our final *big* project scheduled for the following week.

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We have never worked so hard on anything.

All of our hard work, wiped away in about 20 minutes. 

...

The next morning, I was lying in bed and a scripture I grew up hearing came to my mind.

“To give them beauty for ashes…”

I have always loved the sound of these words. Very poetic and they paint a beautiful picture of the redemptive process. It got me thinking… redemption is beautiful, but to be truthful, the process to bring beauty out of ashes is not easy.

 I find myself today with a giant opportunity, I get to bring beauty from ashes… literally.

This process will not just happen. It will cost me. I have had, and will continue to have, many opportunities to not bring beauty from this situation.

I can choose not to make the most of it.

But I won’t.

I will not allow this situation to steal any more from me than it already has

I am headed to Redemption.

I do not worry about the destination, but the journey overwhelms me at times. I know how costly it is to go on this journey. It is not fun, but it is worth it. Even though I would not have chosen this. I can do this.

I will do this.

I will release my expectations.

I will stand on my faith.

I will hold on to my hope.

And I will choose to love.

And then I will wait. I will wait and watch it all unfold.

Beauty is coming.

Just wait and see.

Do you know of anyone who is also in an overwhelming time of their life? Forward this to them and let us make beauty together!

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The High Cost of Hope

Why couldn’t it just have gone as planned? It was all supposed to be so simple. So straightforward. I’m so disappointed that things haven’t gone as smooth as I hoped they would.

Why must it be so damn hard?

I don’t understand.

I weep today over the obstacles of life. I weep over the deep disappointment of the dream that is still a dream.

I am continually amazed at how much this life can hurt. The depth of disappointment that we can experience is surprisingly deep. Long roads that seem to have no end are beyond discouraging.

I am here. Broken.

I am here because I dreamed. I am here because I believed. I am here because I hoped.

What do I do now?

Do I run?

Do I hide?

Do I try to find a way to never be here again?

No.

I absolutely will not run from my heartache. I will not hide from my pain. I will stand here. I will be still. I will face it. I will challenge it.

I will soak in my pain, embrace my brokenness and I will do something that feels like a very stupid thing to do right now.

I will hope.

I will hope even though my hope has cost me in the past. I will hope even though I have no guarantees. I will hope because I refuse to be a person who lives without hope. I will hope because I believe in redemption. I will hope because I believe that hope is one of the most powerful forces in this world.

Hope is a rare commodity that many people come to believe is too costly to possess.

This world has a way of betraying us, but I will hope still. I will cry. I will scream. I will curse.

But I will stand.

And I will hope.

I don't think we will ever fully understand the role that disappointment has in our lives. The path we expected and the path that we have lived are far from the same. The amount of pain that this world brings to our doorstep can seem unfair. At times, it feels like we are being run over by our disappointment.

Disappointments are tough, but I will not allow my disappointment to control my future. I will march on, with more passion than ever and I will not fear the risk to hope.

Because to live a life without hope is to live no life at all.

Fear tells me that my hope is too costly to possess, but I will challenge my fears. I will have the final say.

Watch me.

Even when my outstanding dreams seem more than I can bear, I will press forward, forging a way to a new place. I will not look back. I will embrace where I am, but fully expect to be somewhere new soon.

I will stand here until my disappointment turns into one of the most precious commodities in the world.

I will stay in this place until my disappointment turns to hope.

And when I am once again armed with hope. I will be ready and expecting to bring change to this world. Because through the eyes of my hope, I can see not what is, but what could be.

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A Letter to the Broken-hearted

You find yourself today in a place that you never thought you would be. You never saw it coming. You weren’t prepared for this. Sure, you knew this life would have its challenges, but you never imagined it would look like this or feel like this.

You have discovered a whole new layer of pain that you didn’t know existed… and you wish you could go back. You didn’t ask for this and it has changed you in a way that you never wanted.

I know you are overwhelmed with your feelings. You feel like an empty shell and can hardly imagine your life before… without the pain. No matter how much sleep you have, it never seems to be enough. Exhausted would be an understatement.

I know you don’t want to be here, but here you are.

I am sorry.

Maybe no one knows what you’ve been through… or maybe everyone knows. It matters not. No one can fully understand. No one can feel what you feel.

Even in a crowd, loneliness seems to be all around you.

You feel alone because in many ways you are. Not that you don’t have people who will support you, you do. But words can’t possibly define the pain you feel… and only you have walked the journey to where you are today.

I wish that all the pain would just *magically* disappear, but it won’t.

And for that I am sorry.

Going back to who you were before is impossible because you are not the same person. The person you once were, no longer exists. You have been permanently changed through this painful experience and it is scary… and confusing… and overwhelming.

Now I want to tell you something that is very important…

 It matters.

It matters that you are here. It matters where you have been. It matters where you are going.

Your pain matters.

You matter.

The road before you looks long and hard because it is. There are many obstacles ahead that will be difficult to get through.  The journey ahead is long, yes. The journey ahead is hard, yes. But the journey ahead of you is worth it.

You are worth it.

You didn’t choose this, but you have choices now. You get to choose what your future holds. You can’t change your past, but you can define it. You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and begin to walk again. Begin to move forward.

Please, choose to heal. Choose to hope. Choose to love.

Don’t allow yourself to give up. You are too valuable to this world. This world needs you.

This world needs you to hope.

This world needs you to heal.

This world needs you to live.

I beg you with everything that I have, fight for your healing. Don’t stop until you can stand tall once again. Don’t stop until you have your peace. Reach out to those who can help you heal. Be wise in how you spend the small amount of energy you have. Take the time that you need to rest, but don’t allow yourself to quit.

And if you choose the path to heal, there will be a surprise for you at the end of it…

The path before you leads to beauty.

It may take weeks, months or years, but beauty is ahead of you.

A person who has been healed of a broken heart is an extremely beautiful soul.

It is a soul filled with strength, courage and compassion. A soul that has known the darkness, but chose the light. It is a soul that has experienced the risk of vulnerability, but chooses it still.

If you choose, there is beauty ahead of you. A beauty that is more real and tangible than anything you have experienced in your life thus far.

I beg you… don’t let yourself die with a broken heart.

For a broken heart that is left unhealed will become a bitter heart, but a broken heart that is given the opportunity to heal will become the most beautiful of hearts. I promise.

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Your Life Is Now. Live It Today.

I would like you to do something right now, forget about your present circumstance and forget about your stress. Forget about the past few years that have not gone the way you expected. (Don’t worry we will come back to reality, just go with me for a minute.) Now, let’s go back to a simpler time, a time when you had your whole future ahead of you. You were filled with hope and excitement of the many possibilities ahead.

Stay here for a moment.

Who is this person? What dreams did they have? What kind of person were they to become? What kind of life would they live?

Ok, now come back.

This is it, this is your life.

Welcome to your future.

Are you the person that you always hoped to be? If so, CONGRATULATIONS! That is wonderful and I wish you the best! If not, why? What has kept you from being that person? Are you carrying the hurt from your past? Are you stuck in your history? Perhaps you keep planning to be that person "tomorrow"? Are you distracted? Are you waiting for others to make it happen?

I would like to formally invite you back into your life. I would like to give you the opportunity today to start fresh. It is simple enough to say, but how do we implement a new beginning?

I will leave you with three suggestions:

Forgive.

Nothing will steal your life from you like living in the past. The choice is yours, but I will always recommend forgiveness. Choose healing. Choose to move forward without the hurts of yesterday. At times, the person that is hardest to forgive is ourself. Today is a great day to begin the process.

Hope.

 Hope is costly, but hope is worth it. The moment we stop hoping is the moment that we stop dreaming. Please, don’t stop dreaming. This world needs what you have inside of you.

Be determined.

Be determined to get “unstuck”. Be determined to dream again. Be determined to live again. Stand up and decide that today is the day that you will no longer sit on the sidelines of your life, you are getting back in the game and you will never leave it again. Whether you become tired, sweaty or bloody you are determined to live every minute of this experience fully.

I speak not of a life without difficulty and disappointment. pain and struggling will be present, yet we let it rule us not. Having the life you want will cost you, but it is worth it. If you are expecting it to be easy, it isn’t.  If you are waiting for it to be given to you, you will wait forever because that gift is never coming. Don’t look to live a life without problems, but choose to live life despite them.

Today is the day you can choose to live again.

Make a change.

Decide to heal.

Decide to hope.

Welcome back my friend, how you’ve been missed.

Look in the Mirror and Clearly See

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Have you ever felt discontent with who you are?

Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my life. Don’t get me wrong, my circumstances were great. I had a wonderful family, great friends, I was a new mom, I was blessed with a job that I enjoyed and I was in a flourishing marriage, yet I felt disappointed with myself.

I wanted to find a way to live content.

I wanted to learn to be ok with who I was.

I wanted to learn how to love me.

I set off on a journey to discover and learn to appreciate who I am. Now, after several years, I have a suggestion for anyone who is longing to become more secure in who you are:

Look in the mirror,

see yourself

and own what you see.

This is harder than it sounds. As I look back, I realize that I have spent a lot of time either running from the mirror or lying about what I saw. Why would I do this? I was filled with pride and fear. Pride kept me blind to the truth of my brokenness and fear kept me ashamed of my imperfections.

It can be so easy to get caught up in lying to ourselves about who we are, but in order to be completely free we must see it all, the good, the bad and the ugly. Only after we acknowledge that we have flaws can we begin to attend to them. I didn’t even realize that I had been hiding or denying complete parts of myself.

If we want to truly begin transforming our lives, we must stop thinking that it is unacceptable to have problems, insecurities and brokenness. It is not bad to have “issues”, it is human. The sad thing is that we are all walking around trying to be “perfect”, when in reality, we all have major shit we are working through.

Embrace the real you.

Embrace the truth of who you are, in all its beauty and in all of its ugliness. Embrace that you are a person filled with many aspects: wonderful things, embarrassing things, strengths, weaknesses and brokenness. Embrace your current self, embrace who you have been and embrace who you will be.

I was struggling with being secure because I wasn’t acknowledging who I was. My instincts told me that if I wasn’t perfect then I would lose my value; instead, I found the opposite to be true. Only in being genuine and embracing who I truly am, have I been able to find security.

Once we learn how to accept who we are, flaws and all, we learn something extremely powerful, to love without the premise of perfection.  I have learned the life changing ability to love something that is a work in progress, myself. Even better, I no longer expect others to be perfect. I have thrown away the bar of “performance & expectations” in which I used to measure people’s value. I have finally tapped into the truth that value is not in having a perfect reflection, but being a person, which is of great value.

Don’t let the fear of imperfections keep you from growing. Own your brokenness and own your beauty, they are both very present within you and that is more than ok, that is human. This life just goes by too fast for not knowing yourself.

Embrace right where you are today, give yourself grace to be broken and then become determined to begin the journey to healing.