REDEMPTION UNVEILED
Beauty from Ashes- A Redemption Story
“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.”
“I’m coming.”...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Mastering the Art of Letting Dreams Die
I am passionate about dreaming in this life. I love happy endings and dreams fulfilled. However, there is a very real part of this life that involves learning to allow dreams to come to an end.
Sometimes our dreams die a slow peaceful death and sometimes they come crashing down without any warning they would be gone so soon.
Here are the steps I take when it is time to let a dream die…
I am passionate about dreaming in this life. I love happy endings and dreams fulfilled. However, there is a very real part of this life that involves learning to allow dreams to come to an end.
Sometimes our dreams die a slow peaceful death and sometimes they come crashing down without any warning they would be gone so soon.
When we are young, the sky can feel like the limit. We don't doubt what our life will bring to us because we are confident that our dreams will come to pass and things will go as planned.
And sometimes they do.
However, as we get older and our dreams become reality, we often realize how much disappointment comes along with our dreams. Life seldom goes exactly as we planned. At times, we find ourselves grabbing for scraps of our dreams that have been left over from our reality.
And then there are the times that our dreams are taken from us completely.
No scraps left to gather. No dream left at all.
Nothing left to manage.
I am a firm believer in redemption, but sometimes there is nothing left to redeem. Sometimes the dream is simply gone.
What then?
How do we move forward in life?
Here are the steps I take when it is time to let a dream die…
Acknowledge it is gone.
The first step is to acknowledge what has happened. Look at the situation and define it for what it is. See the loss and allow yourself to acknowledge the new experience you have to live.
Sometimes this is easy and sometimes this is the hardest part of it all.
2. Let it go.
Depending on the loss, this step alone can take some time. Losing something and letting go of it are actually two different steps. The loss comes first, often times, without our consent. Letting go is our participation in the loss. Letting go is our choice to say we are making a new way in our life without our dream.
3. Grieve it.
It's ok and GOOD to acknowledge the loss and allow yourself to feel the pain.
It is important to identify it and talk to someone about it. Even if it sounds silly or you don't think it will help, be sure to find someone you can discuss your loss with.
4. Find hope.
Depending on the depth of your loss, this could take some time. However, at some point, it is essential to discover hope again. Not hope that the dream will return, but hope for a new dream.
5. Decide how you will view your fear.
I have found that once I have chosen to hope again, I am always faced with fear quickly after. Fear of losing my new dream and fear of having to walk the journey of loss once again.
Fear will tell us he is our protector and our friend, but he is not. His true intention is to keep us limited in our life and keep our dreams small.
You and you alone will define how fear directs your future.
Dreaming is a beautiful part of our life. Losing the dream is not so beautiful, but it is necessary to understand that once we have lost a dream we must walk the steps to grieve our loss.
If we don't, we may experience something worse than our lost dream... A life of no dreaming at all.
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I Am Dedicated to Dying Without Bitterness
I have a lot of goals in this life. One of my goals is to die without bitterness. Maybe you think this is a silly goal, but as I have gotten older, it is becoming more and more apparent how difficult this is going to be. There are so many disappointing things that happen in this life…
I have a lot of goals in this life. One of my goals is to die without bitterness.
Maybe you think this is a silly goal, but as I have gotten older, it is becoming more and more apparent how difficult this is going to be.
There are so many disappointing things that happen in this life.
As a child many of us believed that the sky was the limit. We looked at adulthood with longing, because we thought it would be filled with freedom. It seemed clear that our adult life would be the place that all of our dreams would magically come true.
We couldn’t wait to grow up.
However, as we enter into adulthood our hopes can quickly be met with a harsh dose of reality.
Adult life can feel quite monotonous and disappointing.
Our timeline for things like promotions, marriage or children is often different than we hoped. Our career can feel suffocating or stagnant. The money doesn’t always pour in like we expected. Married life is not always the honeymoon we thought it would be and parenting can often be more exhausting than we imagined.
Friendships can be difficult to maintain through the years. Unfortunately, some of our relationships become lost altogether.
And then there are the seasons of life that utterly break our heart and almost break us completely.
It is easy to become cynical.
Without even realizing it, our disappointment can lead us to embrace bitterness. Not all at once, but a little bit at a time.
The way I see it, I have two options:
to own my bitterness or refuse it.
To be clear, I know that bitterness comes with many benefits.
When I am hurt, I can use bitterness as an “off” switch. It allows me to hold onto my expectations and resent the way that things turned out. I can then move forward without processing my disappointment, grieving or forgiving anyone.
Bitterness can be quite comforting when I don’t want to walk through the healing process.
Becoming bitter can happen quite naturally, but it comes at a high cost.
Yes, it gives me a free pass not to heal, but it also keeps me stuck in the pain of my experience. My disappointments will forever have a hold on me until I choose to process them.
I am dedicated to living a life without bitterness.
The way I see it, it is a priority for me to master being disappointed. Not because I enjoy disappointment, but because I want to live free.
Freedom.
The freedom I sought as a child is the very thing I am longing to protect.
My freedom to dream.
My freedom to hope.
The freedom to be me genuinely and not hardened by life.
I will not take responsibility for everything that happens to me in my life, I will take full responsibility for what I do with it.
Bitterness is not for me, that is for sure.
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My Major Misunderstanding of Love
I used to be a person of very conditional love. It was common for me to lower people’s value based on my perception of them and their choices.
Which is quite interesting considering I have spent my entire life dedicated to a faith based on love.
For the past decade, I have been growing my capacity to love and I am quite pleased to say that I am now able to offer love to even the most frustrating of persons.
My ultimate goal?
Unconditional love.
I have been through a lot with people through the years and I get it.
People suck...
I used to think that the words “relationship” and “love” could be defined as the same, but they are not the same at all. Understanding the difference between having a relationship and experiencing love has been life altering for me.
Relationships are a mutual choice between two people to experience life together.
Love is the choice of one person to value another.
Relationships must be experienced by two.
Love is given by one.
I used to be a person of very conditional love. It was common for me to lower people’s value based on my perception of them and their choices.
Which is quite interesting considering I have spent my entire life dedicated to a faith based on love.
For the past decade, I have been growing my capacity to love and I am quite pleased to say that I am now able to offer love to even the most frustrating of persons.
My ultimate goal?
Unconditional love.
I have been through a lot with people through the years and I get it.
People suck.
They do.
People lie. People cheat. People steal. People can’t be trusted. People hurt us. People betray us.
I’m not here to tell you otherwise.
I’ve been there. Heck, I’m there today.
I get it.
But I am all in.
I have two feet planted deep into the battle to love and I have the scars to prove it.
I am talking about loving bigger than feelings and experiencing something deeper than mere pleasantries.
I am talking about living in the trenches and fighting for a cause that I believe in.
I am talking about choosing to value those who have disappointed me, respecting those who disagree with me, blessing those who curse me, forgiving those who have betrayed me, and loving those people who have rejected me.
My decision to love has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. However, it is that very decision that has caused me the most pain and disappointment in my life.
But no matter the cost, I will love. Period.
I love because I have been given love and it has changed my life.
Does that mean I have the same relationship with everyone? Absolutely not. Relationships require mutual admiration and respect. Love does not.
Despite popular belief, my ability or inability to value someone does not define them... but it does define me.
I now understand that love is not an easy way out.
Love is my only way free.
Finding freedom in facing my brokenness. Do you want to join me? CLICK HERE!!!
Living the Dream, One Nightmare at a Time
Isn't crazy how life can turn out so different than we expect it to? I have found that even things go how I wanted them to go, the journey often looks quite different than I expected it to. Today on my blog I share a bit of how the very life that has brought to life our dreams, is the very life that has brought forth our nightmares. Enjoy...
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 house caught on fire. It has been quite the eventful past year! Thankfully, we have moved back into our house and we are loving every minute of it! Here's a bit of an update on our home and family. I hope you are doing well my friend, Haley.
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
Dealing with Discouragement
Discouragement can be so disappointing. I hate the days of my life that I feel discouraged. It is amazing how defeated I can feel! Check-out my blog post today about being discouraged...
Seriously, I have to do this again? I have to be here… again? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be disappointed. I want to move on. I want to not care. But I do. I do care.
I am tired of feeling disappointed in this life.
I am tired of resenting my hope.
It is easy to resent hope because it is only after hope that I find myself disappointed. And shortly after disappointment comes discouragement. But I hate discouragement more than I hate disappointment. I hate being discouraged. I hate being overwhelmed.
I am a handler. I like to handle things, not to be handled by them.
I like to have strength, knowledge, and wisdom to deal with every obstacle that comes my way. I like to have a plan to proceed forward with finding success. And I enjoy having my to-do list that I can check off my small victories.
I like victories.
I don’t like to feel like I am losing. I don’t like to feel like I am falling behind. Isn’t it so easy to feel like we are falling behind? In a moment we can be hit with the revelation that we are lagging. We should be farther. We should be more. We should be better.
I hate these moments.
I hate the moments that tell me I should be more than I am.
That my life should be more than it is.
I hate the seconds of my life that discouragement tells me how to feel… and I listen. I hate it. I don’t want to listen to my discouragement, but at times it feels like the only voice I can hear. I try to quiet the voice and speak firm to my discouragement. Sometimes it happens so subtly that I fail to realize what is even happening. I fail to realize who I am listening to.
You see, discouragement tries to get me to sit down and stop. Discouragement tells me that I will never catch up and that in the end, I will lose anyway.
Discouragement tells me to quit.
I was telling Carter the other day that it is funny because I wouldn’t call myself a quitter; (I actually can’t think of anything at the moment that I have actually quit) however, I think about quitting things a lot.
One example of this is when I thought about starting a blog for years. Finally, last June I began to force myself to take action toward my goal. Funny enough, I “quit” my blog about six times before I even launched it. Haha! Carter would come home and I would tell him about the new thing that I was trying to learn, but I was pretty sure it was too hard and I needed to just quit. I would give myself a week or two and then get back at it to try again. It didn’t happen overnight, but six months later I launched myself a blog!
Even now, I will call Carter and tell him that I need to work on a blog post, but have come to the realization that I have nothing to say and don’t know why I have a blog. I give myself a moment… or a day and then I get back at it. Suddenly, I have something to say again and I wonder how I could have ever felt voiceless.
Truth is, quitting is not my style. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I guess I like breaks.
I am all about taking a break when things get tough.
Let’s not discount the very necessary experience of rest. Rest is perfect. If you are discouraged today, step back, breathe and rest.
Give yourself rest, but don’t quit.
Funny enough, discouragement often comes right before our greatest breakthroughs! Let’s not listen to the voice that tells us to quit because that voice cannot be trusted!
Let’s keep our heads up. We can do this!
-Haley
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That Awkward Moment When... You Have a Breakdown at Walmart
Have you ever had a breakdown at a less than optimal time?! I have... at Walmart. Awkward! Watch my account of the events in my very first video blog!...
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.”
“I’m coming.”...
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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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