“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” -C.S. Lewis

—

This has been one of my favorite illustrations for years now, but I have never felt it more deeply than in this season of my life.

Probably because I have recently experienced both the pain and the restoration of what I’ve come to think of as a God-sized demo-day.

It wasn’t what I wanted from Him. I was pretty cozy and comfortable with the little run-down cottage version of myself I’d come to know.
I had certain ideas and beliefs that I’d grown accustomed to, and they did a decent job of holding up the four walls of my being.

But those beams splintered and fractured quickly under the weight of life, and had to be replaced with something sturdier, more durable. Something refined by fire.

Where the enemy painfully exposed the rot, God came in with everything required to fix me and make me stronger in Him than ever.

He fulfilled a vision I could not see.

—

Where there was once cramped and dark rooms full of fear of the unknown, there are now open spaces with huge windows, flooding every dark corner with His goodness and light.

Now, there is purpose to my pathways.
There is beauty painted on my walls.
There are open doors that lead to places that once did not exist.
Little courtyards created where I can now gather with others in understanding and love over the same hard losses.

My little living house had to grow and change to accommodate the God that was much bigger and more complex than the version of him I had once known.
He simply could no longer fit in that small and shabby place I had once been. He had to expand me, so that I could experience Him more fully.

My little living house has transformed bit by bit as he covered and repaired all of the hurt and broken parts. The things I had tried to haphazardly repair on my own.

He waited with kindness for me to show Him freely and surrender completely to the work that had to be done.
And then, without hesitation or judgment—or anger at me for messing it all up—He did what He always does.

The miraculous.
The impossible.

He transformed my meager little soul into His very own dwelling place✨

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