Slow Growth Equals Strong Roots by Mary MarantzSample

Construction of the Heart

My husband and I live in a little 1880s fixer-upper by the sea. For ten years, we have been remaking this home in our own image, walking that thin, threaded line of giving new life to this house while also giving honor to the history that came before.

Sometimes I think about how much easier it would be to live in a new construction.

Every wall is straight as an arrow, the kitchen cabinets all shiny and soft-closing. We wouldn’t have to deal with the ruins and the rubble. We wouldn’t have to build upon the mistakes somebody else made.

It’s hard building a life when you are constantly dealing with what came before. Generational patterns you feel called to break. Entire chapters that had nothing to do with you, and yet they haunt the hallways.

I feel like easy-story people get blank slates, this fresh new construction untouched by the past. They get to move in, hang a Magnolia wreath on the door, and call it done.

Hard-story people, on the other hand, are left to build where others left off. To fix what can be fixed. To honor the foundation on which they stand. And to try to leave it all a little better than they found it.

I have spent way too much of my life being The Most Put-Together Woman in the Room. But what I’ve realized is that I have a lot more in common with my 1880s house than I thought. We are both trying to honor and also correct for the history that came before. We have more value than anyone ever initially gives us credit for. And it is because of what we are made of that we are still standing here today. The rain fell and the floods came, but we did not fall.

In life, shiny and brand-new will no doubt always be easier. But if we want the world to see our character, sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with what came before—and find that it, too, can hold redemption.

God, You are the firm foundation on which we stand. Thank you that what matters most is not the ease of our stories but the character of what is being built. You have made it possible that the bad stuff never truly got into the construction of our hearts. Amen.