A Crack in the Foundation

When you get married in your twenties, you get excited to start your life independently from your parents and WITH a partner. You start building a tower with a few pieces of life experience that you have and the only way you know to build is up. It makes sense. Towers are meant to be tall right?

And then an earthquake happens.  Everything you once knew is now shattered. Gone. Unsafe. Unhealthy.  It may even threaten to take your life.

Once you are at ground zero though you start looking around and you feel incredibly hopeless because the shrapnel that is all around you looks unfixable. Rendered useless. You start to look closer at the remains and notice there were hundreds of tiny cracks in the cement.  Your attempts at building taller only amounted to more weakness until the foundation could not withstand the storm. There are a few things that you find that can be useful in rebuilding such as the lessons you learned about what you need and want, and what God has called you to do.  Amongst the pieces you pick up are the children that you are incredibly thankful for. When you look at them it forces you to put down the pieces of regret that fell off the peak of the old tower.

Then you say to yourself:

“Will I ever be able to rebuild from this?”

“Who is going to love a broken tower?”

“What if I make this mistake again?”

The moment of truth then hits you square in the face and you find out the answer is "yes".  With someone who is willing to build a tower with a rock solid foundation. One who has been in your shoes before and knows exactly where the errors were made. A person who understands that the base of the tower needs to be wider.  They add a few support braces that can be placed in the corner to prevent rattling when the intensity level of the earthquake reaches it’s strongest point. A guy with a few pieces of his own tower that fill in the spaces of your broken one and add extra color.

Sometimes you just need to start over to get what you should have had all along.

You decide to bring a few parts and leave the rest.

We have brought our kids, our lessons, and the clothes on our backs. 

We are currently stumbling upon pure happiness, health, and hundreds of giggles. But most importantly we now know that broken towers do not stop the creation of new towers. The old ones just get put in their proper place.  

The kids have been brought together and they are the cutest things since the history of ever. 

The towers on the right were our old marriages and the tower on the left is what we are currently building.

Could it really get any better than this? I don't know. One thing I am sure about is that I am TOTALLY willing to find out...

The Truck You Never Expected

Remember my last post about the truck?

If not, click here.

If so, well, you know what to do...

The truth of the matter is that some lessons. Even hard ones. Are there for the reason they appeared and then the real reason is so that you will be able to look back and see an even bigger picture and recognize what is right in front of you.

Which brings me back to the truck. The truck that symbolized my divorce and the fight I had to endure to save my daughter and myself.

I am not here to discuss that truck any longer, but rather, I want to talk about the truck that I was passing today as I left Vermillion.

I went to Vermillion today to help my boyfriend pick out some new glasses and to enjoy lunch with him at Chik-fil-a.  I suspected we would do just that and chit chat like we always do and then I would head back to Sioux Falls. No. Big. Deal.

I would be lying if I said it was just plain and ordinary.  I watched him be patient, smart, considerate, and a downright fine gentleman, but I also got to see him in real life. Not just on a fancy date, in texts, on the phone, or through FaceTime. I got to see how he interacts with people and how he responds to my overly social personality and strong opinions. He was himself and that is all I could ask for. Then it came time for me to leave and as I left my heart sunk because I knew there would be life that had to be done without him by my side.

I was a few miles from the interstate when I saw a familiar looking truck and I braced myself because I have been behind one before. The previous experience was far from pleasant and it left me scared, tired, covered in feces, yearning to get away from it,  and in desperate need of a car wash.

But as I approached I noticed that it did not smell and I found that to be strange. Maybe this truck is different but then I thought I better pass it anyway just in case is starts throwing excrement backward. If I passed it now I could potentially dodge the s*** storm. As I went to pass it nothing came flying at me so I slowed down because I was just sure this was too good to be true. I decided to ride along side the truck and nothing bad happened. Not one thing. I looked at the truck and there were baby horses along for the ride and we made eye contact. This truck did not belong behind me. It was meant to be right beside me.

Then it dawned on me.

Just because the truck of the past was so damaging does not mean that all of them are. Some trucks may even have precious cargo to fall in love with. The new truck may even be blue which happens to be your daughter’s favorite color.  This truck is not going to leave you scared, or alone, or broken, but rather leave you with a newfound appreciation for life and the opportunity to share it with someone who is healthy.

Cory. Thanks for being the truck that should have been hauling this cargo all along. I can only pray that the future for us will have ups and downs and that we can tackle them as a team. Together. No longer alone.

In fact.  You know what? We already are. Today. The aloneness is completely gone and God knew this exact plan all along. He was just waiting for us to catch up to his truck.