Yesterday afternoon, The Husband and I visited with The Niece so that The Brother-in-Law could go for a run (with The Sis on a work trip and he being Mr. Mom, I feared he might just keep running).  While I was holding her, that little ball of fat let out a man-sized grunt–a new method of communication to be added to the coo–and her face transformed into a tomato. The grunt and the redness were so intense that I called TH over, sure that she was in pain and wondering if infants can get kidney stones.  His response: “Whoa.  She’s taking a major dump.” Sure enough, a diaper check minutes later confirmed his observation and I was left wiping her clean of the closest brush she’s ever had with evil.  Cut to dinner that night with the other Bro-in-Law, the Sis-in-Law, and the Nephews Tres.  The little one (name escapes me) has just learned and mastered the use of the word mine. I was struck by how much changes between two and nineteen months, how much humanity enters in and stakes its claim on a personality.  And by how early we all begin to look at the world around us with a sense of ownership.  Mine.

What scars I’ve inflicted upon myself by holding the various components of my life in a death-grip over the years, sure that the future depended on my planning it and carrying it out!  Thankfully, God specializes in redemption and plastic surgery or I would be nothing but a walking wound.  Had I managed to hold down the deck chairs on that Titanic, I would be standing in the midst of my own life as a stranger, wondering how things had gotten to this point.  Wondering who that man was and why we ended up together, wondering what New York was like this time of year, wondering why I felt the need to get words out but had no voice to convey them.

Instead, I stand in the middle of our new house, its innards immodestly on display due to a diligent contractor.  I see the perfectly white and oval tub, my future oasis, set in an unfinished wooden framework.  And because of whose I am and how far I’ve come (and not for nothing, how long it took to get here), I suffer no disorientation among these pipes and wires and floorboards. Funny how what you believe, and a finally-realized track record of being well-loved, can allow you to look at a gut job and see a home.

This future dwelling of ours has been stripped to its foundations but not demolished, and I can’t help but feel a kinship with it as I notice our similar histories and the fact that we’re both still standing. When I left Birmingham for New York, beaten down and broken, I figured I was about to be remade.  I certainly felt demolished, and wondered when Me 2.0 would begin.  But I had only been exposed, for my personal Contractor does not specialize in demo but in the graceful art of uncovering what was planted there in the first place, hidden beneath years of self-preservation techniques and defense mechanisms.  There was something worthwhile in the framework, even though I couldn’t see it, because he put it there.

A little C.S. Lewis on the matter:

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

Prior to taking a look at what our contractor was doing–which involved grabbing a flashlight and climbing across broken floorboards to bravely stand in the mess–I had no idea of the intricate handiwork required for a house to function properly.  This is the beginning of wisdom, I’ve come to realize: admitting how little I know, even (especially) about myself.  Because until I yield the designation of Expert to the one who owns it, I will walk as a stranger in my own life.  And everything that runs counter to my plan will look like demolition.

Instead, I walk among the floorboards with the one whose laugh and vision match mine, who looks at my mess and sees a home. And I can see now how all the twists and turns and strange connections and odd pieces have fit together to create something that makes sense–something that, though sure to be knocked about, will stand.