Jesus, the carpenter

For quite some time, I was building my own home. A large home at that. My entire life, I was the carpenter, taking control of the blueprint and even taking a hold of the tools a carpenter uses to build a stable structure. Everyone knows that a sturdy foundation is that on rock and not on sand. Yet, as I continued to ignore the spongy foundation that I was building on, I ceased to notice the storm that was slowly approaching my home. 

The season slowly began to change from summer to fall as the leaves changed color and the skies began to darken. I was fooling myself into thinking that the storm that was about to approach this home I had built wasn’t going to shake it too hard. I was sure that the sand-like foundation would suffice and only some damage would be seen after the sky cleared. However, the storm rolled through like an angry hurricane that shows no mercy on any shaky foundation and all at once, everything I had built was falling on top of the grains of wet sand. Doors were being ripped off and walls were collapsing onto each other. Like the Gospel of Matthew, the rain poured, the floods emerged and the winds beat on my large home; knocking down just about every wall that I had built to keep myself safe. Safe from the true carpenter, from the one who allowed the storm to appear but to also pass through.

As I looked all around me, after the winds had ceased and the rain had quit; the only remains of the home I had built were in shambles all around me. I was exposed. No roof to shield my head and no walls to protect me. I was ridden with shame- everything I had built was gone. While looking around, the sun began to slowly show and the feeling of hope burned my skin. After the clouds began to clear and the bright, burning sun began to appear again, I could see a new carpenter. The one who builds on rock and not sand. The one who is now teaching me that He is the carpenter of the new home He is building for me. 
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As I look back on that storm, I was reminded of what I asked in the beginning of this missionary year: to build in me a stable foundation. Being a missionary has allowed me to see that he continues to rebuild the broken parts of my old home, restoring in me an entirely new resting place. Jesus is not done building and continues to build magnificant rooms in this new home of mine.

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Hi there! My name is Mia Marcotte and I'm a missionary at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. I'm from a desert land called Arizona where I graduated from Arizona State University and am now living in the beautiful Midwest!

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