Reclaimed

For the past 8 or so years, Eric and I have been staring at the same set of house plans. Our someday dream home that glows and twinkles in our daydreams, like a mirage in a desert, is merely a drawing on paper that we long for in reality. We've met with kitchen designers and looked at alluring gas fireplaces and received bids on window arrangements and stone to wrap the timber pillars around the outside of the house. We've met with an architect and finalized layouts, beam lengths and how many switches we want on the wall when we enter a room. I've even purchased a few things - like a charming, rustic wine barrel rim chandelier and frosted glass pendants to hang above the countertops. I've convinced Eric that its better to start buying all the things now, because if we wait until the moment when we are ready to install such things, we won't have any money left to buy them. This makes perfect sense to me.

I have even conceded to the thought that I don't have to have everything from Pottery Barn. I don't need the fanciest or the shiniest, the fluffiest or the newest of everything. Since I have moved to this quaint little farm town, I have been teaching myself to love old things, because, honestly, there aren't too many new things here to behold. Many of my dear friends enjoy hitting up the flea markets and antique malls which run rampant here in the same way Starbucks dominates Chicago city streets. At first, I didn't see the draw. Why buy something old, when, for a hundred dollars more you could have it new and bruise-free AND delivered right to your front door in two to three business days? Finding the beauty in old things has become a treasure to me - like discovering a part of myself over and over again, parts of me that I thought I had lost or had forgotten about. The history and stories that come with items that lived their shiniest moments in the past are beautiful if not for any other reason than the fact that they survived. They lasted. And now they are being reclaimed and layered with new stories that increase their richness and value.

Eric has been ripping oak planks and timbers out of an old family barn, with the intention of using the wood to build our house. He has been scouring the local salvage yards and acquired timbers that provided structural support for hundred year old barns. We have quite the collection of beams, hewn with chiseled edges, weathered and worn, nails protruding from the strong, earthy wood. They are discolored, smell of must and time, and display age with splits and cracks. I have no doubt in my mind, though, that these planks will transform into beautiful hardwood floors. They will be sturdy shelves in my pantry and provide a rustic elegance stacked against the wall to which my bed will border. Making old things new is the name of the game. To find the treasures hidden around us and breathe new life into something that is willing and able to receive it. To reclaim what was lost and turn it into something full of vitality and purpose.

I recently visited Eric at the barn, to get a glimpse of the treasures he was unearthing. As I ran my hand over the ancient, rustic timbers, I thought about a recent season in my life when God was reclaiming me, recovering me from the ashes of a mess I created. Back in February, I had felt a stirring, deep within the depths of my soul. God was calling me out of the depression that had crippled me for months after Sammy's birth. I longed to find myself again, to remember who I was in Him, my identity as a woman after God's own heart - one with a burning desire to create beauty, but just couldn't find the time to do so. I longed for Him to make me new again.

Around the same time as this stirring began, I was offered a job as an art teacher at my childrens' school. Of course it was a sign of an answered prayer, right? Here I was, struggling day to day because I had no time for myself, aching to sit with a pen in hand and pour my heart out on paper, or splay watercolors across a blank canvas. Art teacher seemed like the cure for my pained longing, like a dose of doing something meaningful and profound for my children and the children of my dearest friends would halt the tension that was building inside of me. I pursued the opportunity with fervor and immediacy and felt anxiety with every step that took me closer to the start of the new school year. Eventually, I couldn't take another step. I knew deep down in the most tender parts of my identity that I could have been an excellent art teacher. I would have had so much fun with those precious kids and would have savored every minute of it. But my prayer all along had been for God to make me new again. I wasn't praying for new things. I deeply needed him to transform me.

I needed to be reclaimed.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:  “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
Jeremiah 18:1-6

God takes each of us - marred and lumpy and useless as we are, and persistently molds and remolds and remolds us. And He doesn't just reshape us into some haphazard sculpture project - He's not aiming for a B+ in His ceramics class. No, He is a Creator of beautiful things, things that take shape and grow wings and fly. He takes what is old and makes it new, every day, day after day. With every rebirth, every renewal, every time we are lifted from the ashes of a hot pruning fire that burns away all the impurities and disease that plagues our souls, we are reclaimed in His name.

Sometimes, a new job or a fresh opportunity is part of the transformation. But as God spoke tenderly to my heart, I realized He was reminding me that I had everything I needed to thrive, already inside of me. He lovingly nudged me to check the back door to my deepest longings and desires. He had left it open for me... even though I thought it had been slammed shut. When I finally turned down the teaching job, a deep sense of peace washed over me, cleansing me of anxiety and fear. What sprouted in its place was self discovery. I began to yearn for remembrance of the shiny stories of my past, the history that created me. Newness is enticing. But sometimes, old is the way to go, and that is because I have value. I have value not because of what I can be but because of who I already am.

The rustic timbers dusted with rich history and destined for the pitter-pat of little feet lasted all of these years in a dilapidated old barn. They survived the groaning earth that settled and moved. They weathered the storms that blew shingles off the roof and siding off the barn. I lasted too, through the storms and self-made oppression. And the old parts of me are being made new again - parts that have been reclaimed in His Name.

I'm learning to keep my eye on my back door... it seems to be the one God is using more frequently these days.