family and friends gathered together to mix and pour concrete for our footer-it took many hands to measure and square and mix and pour, to encourage and sacrifice.  there was a ton of hard work, but lots of laughter and a sense of being a part of something exciting.  it was not lost on me, the fact that we were not in this alone.  it was a beautiful beginning.

our second born came along and brick by brick by brick we built up our foundation.  we’d drive the big red truck out to the construction supply place, have it loaded up with cinder-blocks and drive on up to our property where we’d unload them one at a time.  we stacked and we stacked, camping out in our pop-up when we could, and slowly slowly, the foundation began to take shape.

everything took 4 times as long as we expected, but we forged ahead.  this is how foundations go isn’t it?  to lay a foundation with our Shepherd, with our kids, with our marriage-we invest time.  the reality of that was not foreign to us.  Jesus contrasts a foolish and wise builder in his sermon on the Mount, and there is also that old nursery rhyme about the three little pigs.  in both cases, the condition of the foundation isn’t truly known till the winds come.

 

“Therefore anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

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to draw further in:  Matthew 6:24-27