Wrecked
“What if this painful breaking is part of a beautiful remaking?”- Lysa Terkeurst
This quote reminds me of ways I’ve seen God reveal Himself through breaking and remaking in my own life…
Torn gift wrapping still strewn about the basement. Ashes and flames danced about the fireplace. The delightful aroma of homemade cinnamon rolls lingered throughout the house. The bliss of Christmas morning. We had already celebrated with my family and had exchanged gifts with our kids. We were preparing to host my husband’s family Christmas celebration when we heard frantic pounding on our front door. As I opened it, one of the men standing there pointed at the roof and yelled, “Ma’am, there’s black smoke… I think your house is on fire!”
I immediately called for my husband, who ran outside, looked up and said, “Call the fire department.” I was standing in my living room as called 911 from my cell and explained what was happening. The dispatcher asked if we were all out of the house, something I honestly hadn’t even thought of. But from where I was standing, nothing looked dangerous.
We waited outside for the fire department to come, and the two men who had knocked on the door were still there. Small town, but I’d never seen them before. They had simply been driving by, noticed the smoke, and came back to warn us. “We couldn’t just keep driving,” they said. I thanked them repeatedly. A bit later, I heard one of them say, “Well, our work here is done.” And then they were gone. Seriously. I’m not making this up. I don’t remember them getting back into their truck. I don’t remember watching them leave. All of a sudden I just realized they weren’t there anymore. In the meantime, the police, paramedics, and fire department had arrived and started tearing into my garage wall to get things under control. The fireplace literally overheated, causing 220 degree temperatures in the wood studs between the garage wall and the house, and in the attic insulation above the house. Apparently, the fire chief told us, it wasn’t constructed properly when it was built 30 years ago. Why this hadn’t happened before, no one seemed to know. There was charring, melted wiring and lots of smoke, but no actual flames. But they told us at least three times that those two men stopped and we called at “just the right time” because it was within minutes of igniting.
Within an hour of the fire department leaving, our family arrived for the Christmas celebration, so it wasn’t until after everyone left later that night, that my mind really began to process what had happened. I sat down on the couch and looked up to see the canvas in my living room that said, “The magic of Christmas is not in the presents, but in HIS PRESENCE.” That reality hit me hard. We had just celebrated Immanuel, God with us, at the Christmas Eve service. He was there through all of it. He was with the men who stopped. He was with the dispatcher who reminded me to get out of the house. He was with all those who left their own Christmas celebrations to save my home. He was with our family of five as we huddled in the driveway not even sure exactly what was happening. We recognized God’s presence in the moment, but the power of that reality did not grip me until later.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
In the weeks that followed, we dealt with restoration services and insurance claims. For reasons I still don’t understand, the insurance would cover the cost to repair the damages of the fire, but would not cover the cost to actually fix the cause of the fire, which we had been told was faulty construction. We love our fireplace and plan to be in our house for a long time. We want to actually use it, so it was important to us that we fix it properly, so we can enjoy it the way it was intended to be enjoyed. This meant doing most of the work ourselves so that we could have enough money to cover what needed to be done. Fortunately, my husband is incredibly handy and willing to learn anything he doesn’t already know. Well, brick work was one of those things. And the brick work would be the most expensive part. So we decided we would reuse the original brick instead of getting new and basically fix the fireplace and put everything back up exactly the way it was.
So the deconstruction process began. First we had to remove all the inside brick to get into the wall so that we could clear out all the charred wood and wiring that was in there. My husband started at the ceiling and worked his way down the wall, pulling the bricks out one by one. By the time he had removed a few rows, he started noticing something…each brick pulled away began to reveal darkness and damage that was more than smoke. Fire had been in that wall. As he continued to work and demolition became more intense, we realized that over time, the top of the firebox had actually corroded, leaving a couple good-sized holes. The flames from the inside of the fireplace were actually burning through the top of the firebox up into the wall… and we were completely unaware. We knew at this point that complete deconstruction was necessary. The entire wall came down, melted wiring was exposed; soaked, soggy and now moldy insulation that had never been removed during the initial clean- up was still tucked behind an area that seemed unscathed. This was going to be a much bigger project that we first realized. Throughout this process I became even more acutely aware of what God had spared us from and what He was about to teach me through this very real life experience.
When it comes to living life and dealing with our own sinfulness, aren’t we quick to blame our humanness? “That’s just how I am….” Or “That’s just how I was made…” without taking any true responsibility for our words and actions. We chalk it up to faulty construction. “I know I shouldn’t have done that…but I’m a sinner…I’ll just ask for forgiveness later.”
It’s not until something or someone starts pulling the bricks away from the walls we’ve built around us that we begin to see the darkness and damage that’s been done by the fires of life. The solid bricks of self-preservation and the protection techniques we use begin to crumble as they are pulled away one by one. The layers we’ve built to hide that darkness, to conceal that damage, start peeling away. The holes in our fireboxes are exposed; the sometimes gaping wounds left by sin and pain and hurt in our lives are revealed. And it’s terrifying. Despite our desperate attempts to keep it hidden and covered up, we can now see the evidence, the scars from those fires. Sometimes we are completely unaware of the damage that’s been done. Whether it was self- ignited or an act of arson upon us, that fire consumes us, that pain overcomes us. This is not how it was intended to be.
And just as we could not leave our home with a gigantic hole from the living room into the garage or a smaller, yet very significant hole in the firebox, our good Father will not leave us with those gaping wounds, those paralyzing sins. He binds up the brokenhearted. He bandages the injured and strengthens the weak. But often the demolition must be completed before the rebuild can begin. So the walls have to come all the way down, sins exposed, pains revealed. Even the stuff that appears untouched can actually be hiding soaked, soggy and moldy junk. And it is affecting you and those around you. There must be a crucifixion before a there is a resurrection. In the upside down way that God often works, death brings life. We must acknowledge the reality of our brokenness and work through the pain of our wounds and our sins for the healing of transformation to begin.
Somewhere along the way, my husband and I stopped and wondered out loud why in the world would we put this back exactly the way it was when we can do something totally new and exciting?! The wall was gone. We have the opportunity to completely start over! So we ended up with a whole room remodel – fireplace, shiplap, paint, trim, lighting, and floor!
God does the same with us – He meets us right where we are – dirty, damaged, scarred, wrecked. But He does not leave us in that condition. He does a complete transformation. In the words of my pastor, “Sometimes we want Chip and Joanna Gaines when we really need Wreck-It Ralph.” We might just want to clean things up and give ourselves a new look. But what we really need is to be wrecked and broken. We need the painful breaking. We need to come to the end of ourselves. It’s there God does His best work. It’s then the beautiful remaking can begin. He allows us to completely start over. He changes us. We look differently, we act differently, we speak differently. The old has gone, the new has come! Life is no longer about us, about our sin and brokenness, about our desire to control and call the shots. We surrender all that to God and take on His holiness and His righteousness. He makes beauty from the ashes of our lives in a way that only He can. He wrecks us so He can rebuild us. Let Him do His work. Not gonna lie – it’s hard. The breaking is incredibly painful. And often time-consuming. But the end result is the remaking that is even more beautiful than a brand new fire place- it is bearing the image of Christ, a masterpiece that is eternally worth it!
