Walking through a construction site at my work, I see floors that are ripped up looking pretty tattered, holes, missing pieces. I see unfinished walls supported by temporary supports, and amongst it all I see detour signs directing any who wish to navigate.

Our lives can be an ongoing construction site of sorts. Life has a way of ripping, creating holes, errecting temporary supports and detours.

“ I don’t have time for you”…RIP..”Can’t you be like other kids??”…RIP….”You are ugly”…RIP…”Slap”…RIP…”Touch”…RIP….the list is endless.

The holes get created…one thought…, one action… one word at a time. “Pictures” of self condemnation, anger, sadness, doubt, pain, etc get hung in this hole and a “home” of sorts gets made with these reminders everywhere we look.

Then missing pieces created by this construction paint a picture so inaccurate as the whole picture can’t be seen.

Supports and walls that were meant to be a solid foundation for our lives…family…experiences….love, become blockades to the pain and disappointment coming out of these “rips”.

Detours resulting from all this construction lead us into places we were never meant to be. Addictions, toxic relationships, identity, condemnation…and on and on.

Growing up as a young child I have many wonderful childhood memories. Yet like many others in this life, there were “rips” that changed the whole construction site of my life.

I was so loved. Oh SO loved by many. Yet some “rips” sometimes seemed to drown out the good…the great…the wonderful… surrounding my life.

Hurting people hurting people. My ever climbing weight on my young body. Lies. All played into my ever growing self hate and self destruction in so many different ways.

As the years clicked by, my teenage years were riddled with choices that had ultimately been fueled by the “rips” in my life. I ran emotionally, I ran physically as far as I thought I could from the rips…that created holes…that created walls…that created detours. The years brought marriage, babies, joys, sorrows, doubts, illness, deaths, all surrounded by my ongoing construction.

Fast forward to 8 years ago when my ” meetings on the bench” with my God in the moment took a shift. My journals started telling of questions that He was asking me.

” What lies you are you believing in your life?”

I was ready….or more ready to ask myself that question now.

Thus began my journey out of the “hole” in the construction of my life.

Who was this God I had been introduced to so early in my life as far back as I could remember? I was now on a hunt. There was more…I instinctively knew it. More what I didn’t know. I was on a search.

My search led me to a book in my love of reading. You’ve already Got It by Andrew Womack. It talked about me having everything I’ll ever need in this life on the inside to have peace, joy, healing…and much more…the abundant life He promises to us if we but take it, and the journey that taking it looks like. The One who created the world in all His power, and everything in it …living on the inside. The answers of what my God ultimately thought of me and the desires of His heart for me. All of this starting with Him giving His only son for me and the whole world so we could spend eternity in His paradise created for us.

I picked up my Bible with a new hunger and started pouring over it with different eyes…

The words on the pages seemed to leap out into my heart and speak to me in a brand new way….so different than all the years I had read those same words.

I started to experience joy and peace like never before, walking through my revelations of my amazing and loving God and all the promised He had for me.

As the days, weeks and years went by, the “pictures” of self condemnation, anger, sadness, doubt and most importantly lies that were hanging in my “hole”, were sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly being replaced by my new revelations of my God and how he wanted to heal every part of my being to live the abundant life He so wanted me to have.

The “rips” were being healed…the “hole” was being filled with Truth…and the “detours” were becoming roads to the promises in His Word that I could stand on in every area of my life.

The promises for all who come to Him.

His loving arms are open…wide♥️

– John 3:16 –