I love houses.
I love house renovation shows.
I love dreaming about buying this huge house in our neighborhood someday when it's up for sale. It has three stories and is obviously owned by hoarders. I imagine that it would be an awesome fixer-upper. We would just need to rent 14 ginormous dumpsters to get rid of the ceiling high piles of boxes that are smashed against the blinds. The yard isn't super huge, and we'd need to build a double garage, but beside that, just some painting and TLC and that house would probably be amazing.
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| Dear Property Brothers, please fix the hoarder house up for me. K thanks. Oh. And my price range is like 6-7. Hundred. Yeah thanks. |
Or not. Because if it's anything like the shows, chances are it's going to take a lot more than tearing down ugly wallpaper, painting, new Ikea cabinets and sanded floors to make that house into a functional home. The minute the linoleum comes up and those unnecessary walls come down, the worst comes to the surface. Water damage. Mold. Mice. Termites. Faulty electrical wires. The list continues. The gutting begins.
On the shows, when all the hidden damage comes to the surface, the owners are frantic, but hopeful, and they go through whatever it takes to fix it. They shed blood, sweat and tears (and MEGA BUCKS) to create their dream home. And at the end, they cry and smile and are amazed at what the finished product looks like. The home has been restored.
I'm in the same sort of process.
But not with a house.
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This year, what is being GUTTED and RESTORED is me.
My body, mind, and spirit.
It's hard work man. Usually we work on one aspect at a time: our fitness, our marriage, our parenting, our own emotional health or spiritual life. Just one thing at a time. One.
Not me. And not by my own choice. As timing has it, I am in the midst of working on IT ALL.
body
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I am seeing a personal trainer once a week and am doing cardio and strength training 3 times a week. I'm on my fourth week of a Whole30 so I am not eating grains, legumes, sugar or dairy and no alcohol. I'm taking vitamins and using doTERRA essential oils.
mind
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I'm reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Last year when all of my friends were reading it, I made fun of them.
"OHHHH, that's so CUTE that you are finding joy in all the little things.
GOOD. FOR. YOU....
I'm not into that sorta thing.
I'm waist high in diapers, dishes and swears and prayers.
No thanks."
I was NOT in the place, I had NO desire to try to find joy in the trials. I just wanted to just SURVIVE. But now a year later, I find myself still waist high in those things, but with kids a little older. And trials looking a little different. And I am ready. When a friend posted on facebook that it was on super-sale on kindle, I went and purchased it. Best $2.99 I've spent this year. It's deep. It's not your typical Christian lady book, the kind where you can almost hear her southern belle accent and are told over and over live, laugh, love and dance in the storm and all that blah blah blah.
This book is real, and raw and brutiful (brutal+beautiful, thanks for inventing the word Glennon Melton).
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I'm trying to teach my mind to find gratitude and joy. Yes, in the little things. It's hard. It's SO HARD. Thank you Jesus for legos: especially when I swear as I step on them that my boys build amazing things that their little minds dream up. God thank you for my big comfy couch that is pilling and broken in one spot I get to cuddle next to my boys on. Lord thank you for these dirty, sticky piled up beautiful dishes, each one that has served my husband dinner or my boys their cereal.
See? I'm working on it.
spirit
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Oh. This one. This one is hard. I love Jesus and silly me, that's not where I get to stop when it comes to my spiritual life. God Loves me right where I am, but He desires more for me. He wants healing and restoration. And that process is never cute. It's ugly. SO ugly.
I just started a group with my church called Exodus Group. The last two weeks were spent on each of us sharing our life story. In under ten minutes. That was tough, because the gutting process began.
So many emotions. Gut-wrenching emotions. It's a nine week course I think, so we are just at the beginning, but I am hopeful. I know it's time.
It's going to affect my marriage, my children, and my relationships in major ways.
God sees amazing potential in me, so He is taking me on as His fixer-upper with amazing plans in store. He already knows how it's going to look in the end, and He loves me just as much now as he will after I'm gutted and restored.
What's hiding under your linoleum and behind your ugly wall paper?
I challenge you to being gutted too.
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