Foundations

Chink..chink...chink....  Do you hear it?   That sound?

In 2005 My husband Dave and I bought a house.  Our first house after years of "to cheap to not be renting", in an area where housing prices  were sky rocketing faster than our pay checks could or wanted to keep up with.

"Can you all fit in this house?", our good friend and realtor asked, as we made our way through all 1,000 (?) square feet of what was to end up as our new home.  Built in the 1950s, our ranch style, brick house was teeny....and dirty...and smelly.  "C" had  good reason to ask that question, although I am sure what he was really thinking was "Why would you want to fit into this house?".  After renting for so long, we had many years of  built up home ownership envy and had had plenty of time to renovate, plan and decorate many houses in  our mind's eye (s).  Plus, this house came with deeded access  to the Shenandoah River and had a POOL!  Heck!  If we couldn't fit, we would just sprout gills and  learn to live in the water!

As plans were drawn up, and dreams discussed  for an almost complete renovation, my husband, brilliant man that he is, placed a single dot of black permanent marker on the side of our house.

  I saw him do it.

And then I moved on.  You see my Dave is a man of few words.  This I will tell you has been an area of great challenge to me.  But over the years I have learned,  that few words doesn't mean few thoughts....Know what I mean?  I have, however, learned that in order to sometimes "hear" those thoughts, I need to stop speaking and watch him.   Pay attention to what he is doing even if no words come with it.  You see, if I had seen something on the wall, made a conclusion about it and....placed a dot, I would have TOLD him.  I would have called a friend and talked about it, researched on-line to confirm it, (maybe) prayed about it and then probably made the dot, bigger and darker (and in a cool color to match something) to publicity affirm it,  and then...(maybe) gloated  about my wisdom...But not Dave.  He just stood looking at the brick wall, drew his Sharpie "sword", struck... and walked away.

Over the next few months, construction began and one day I pulled up to the house,  and I heard it...That sound...chink, chink, chink.    I saw Dave and his brother, digging with shovels and picking with pick axes around the base of the corner of the house.   Oh, no.  You see, the renovations and the money for them, were for the inside of the house.  Aside from paint, there were NO plans (or money) for outside renovations.  To add to it....I wanted IN!!   Because the "reno" was in every room, we were continuing to live in our rental and all I saw was dollar signs and a ticking clock as we now paid a mortgage, rent, and everything that goes with that.  No.  This was not in the budget.   So I walked over to where they were, trying not to sigh too loud or stomp my feet.  I was informed that it was about The Dot.    Dave, my detail oriented, non-emotional guy had been watching The Dot and... it had moved.  Not once or twice, but far enough away from its original position that it whispered to  him a secret about what was or actually what was not underneath the house.   It appeared that as the house was being built, the original builder, somehow forgot (?) to pour a footer.  For those of you who don't know the terminology, a footer, basically, is a concrete support that helps hold the house up.  Without this, the house slowly over time will begin to....lean. And then little by little, brick by brick... fall.    What Dave, and his eagle eye,  had seen was a hairline crack in the brick of our house.  He knew the possible implications, used The Dot to mark the crack, and waited to see if the hint of a problem actually was a lurking crisis . And now here Dave and Jonathan were, already waist deep, digging out by hand, 5 feet of dirt and rocks around the corner of our house...

I know I could go  couple of different ways with this story, but I think I will just stick with the original thought The Lord woke me with this morning so bare with me...

As might have guessed, I am talking about the  of the importance of foundations.  My intention is not to re-write what you already know but to maybe just open it a little wider. So here goes...

You see, for all long time I thought I had done that "foundation" part.   Plan, check. Dig out the dirt, check.  Gather your materials and crew, check, check.  And then, build, Build, BUILD!!  (Check, check, check.)  So I proceeded feeling pretty secure in the "foundation'.....and then, perhaps over time, I forgot it was even there. Maybe, even forgot all the work it took to build it in the first place.  AND the fact that a forgotten element, intentional or not, WILL at some point, cause the rest to fall.


I found myself  securely standing at the top of a hill looking down over all the trials, challenges and decisions I had made thus far  and felt pretty....proud.  Great husband, great kids, great job.  Check.  And then that sound...that quiet little sound.

Are you with me?

With a house, and with us, all you see is what’s up "above" and to be honest, it looks pretty dang good!  But slowly God in his infinite wisdom and timing, slowly reveals, in a whisper, or maybe with a simple watched dot, that perhaps that foundation isn’t actually complete.  And then one day, in a quiet moment, you hear it...Chink. chink. chink. Or feel it as the earth under your feet vibrates with the deep notes of change...And you realize that all you knew to be true and trusted really was not The TRUTH.
After the first shudder of fear, and mind spinning "I'm not in control feeling", you remember the One who IS in control and the One you trust.  The One you believe and that your God is not a God of fear!  That change is actually a "holy shifting"! It is really what it means to be a child of His!  To believe that we are finished, done or complete means we are no longer open, humbled or laying prostrate before Him and His promise of our future and His total, mind blowing love for us.

Not a Crisis but a catalyst.

Dave and Jonathan dug for two days and what looked to me to be a huge, looong, expensive  job,  with some hard work, and Dave's brilliant know-how, ended up being much easier than I thought.

Now, I don't want to elude that foundation work is easy, but don't we look at most issues and see huge, loong and expensive?  Or maybe painful, time consuming, and fruitless?  Because in reality, even if our foundation problem was going to be all these things, what were we going to do? Walk away?  Let the house slowly go under?
Okay, Kelly.  I hear you.  But how does all this fit into a blog about your journey of becoming a midwife?
So here it is....Over the past few months (years?) of moving towards making this decision,  I have had to admit that I had been hearing that "chink, chink" sound and had been hearing it for a while.  Because I have lived a life of being on-call in a very emotional, physical, and intimate  profession as a birth assistant, and know what that entails, the decision to take the next step has been somewhat like standing on the edge of a cliff, jumping  and free falling...  I will admit it....I don't like heights, jumping now challenges my 43 year old bladder, and free falling?  Without certain medications in my system, I think not.

But....I love a pregnant belly.  I yearn for the music of labour, and the magic that comes with it. The sweetness of a newborns first breath and the joy of witnessing the birth of a family.  Most of all, I love having the privilege of being in a front row seat, seeing God's hand orchestrate what He created and the absolute purity and miracle of it all. 
 Now I see that as He reveals my role of allowing Him to do His job of planner, builder, and restorer,  that the cliff really isn’t a cliff at all..and that my foundation begins and ends with Him...

 Do you hear it?

Chink, chink, chink...










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.
Matthew 7:24-26