When I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Grace, we put an offer in on a house and later that week we found out we were having a girl. A healthy girl and new house. We honestly felt as though we'd won the lottery. Our house wasn't huge or fancy and it was older than we'd hoped for but we were ecstatic. It was great school district in a nice and quiet neighborhood, we moved in the week of Christmas 2010. We prepared a nursery for our first baby girl here and 3 months later I labored between these walls and left to birth that baby, fully expecting her to accompany me back here, 2 days later. I wouldn't return to this house for 6 days and I'll never again be the woman who walked out of these doors that cold and dark March night in 2011... But I also will never be the woman who walked back into these doors that cold March afternoon days later, with no baby in a carseat... I'll be forever changed from both and I am both saddened and grateful for that.
Over the following 7 years, these walls have watched us fall, and they've fallen with us. They born witness to us walking back in, for the final time, with all hope of walking through those doors with the infant who was supposed to fill that lavender room, gone, totally diminished. They've watched us walk through with the ashen remains of that beautiful souls body instead. They've watched us fall completely apart as my womb bled out the promise of new life time and time again. They've watched a marriage fight to survive, daggers in the form of words spit firely out with no regard to the damage they were causing in those moments. They've watched the spirits of children be torn and damaged and broken.
The foundation of this house, and the roof of this house, have literally broken away and have had to be torn off, broken down and repaired.the two things that are integral to a home standing and being safe, betrayed us in this house. This house has witnessed pain in a way that I couldn't even try to describe for someone who had not lived in this house for the last 7 years.
But this house? Oh the redemption and beauty, and the grace that this home has seen. The rebuilding of lives that felt as though they'd never survive the trials set before them. This home has watched it's walls be filled with healthy, happy and loving new life, more than one time! This home, it has seen a marriage that has been given trial after trial, flourish and grow and beat each and every odd set before it. This home has seen healing. Redemption in every single form. This home has seen children loved and cherished and has seen forgiveness asked for and given.
When we had our foundation repaired, we carved Grace into the wet cement. It isn't visible to anyone who doesn't know it is there, but I could find it with my eyes closed. We prayed with our kids and spoke to them about how she would be in this house with us always, never physically but in spirit and we spoke of how we wanted the foundation of our lives to be about grace.
For a very long time, I didn't think I would ever be able to move from this house. If I've not made it clear, I'm not a "change" person and I don't typically make life changing choices, life usually just makes them for me. But, as our family grew, we started feeling the need for our home to grow. What we thought would fit our needs with small kids, was proving to not fit the needs of a large 5 kid family with teens and tweens. I also started understanding that this home, was much like grief.
For a long time, I didn't want to heal from grief, I wanted to wallow in it, I wanted to not forget it, I wanted to stay there because it felt like if I moved forward, I would be leaving her behind. So, the realization came, that perhaps the fresh start of a new home, that wouldn't hold the same amazing stories of redemption, but also wouldn't hold the painful reminders of a life broken, might be a good thing.
And so, last week we closed on a new, much larger, much better suited for our needs home. A home that we are looking forward to making new memories in, a home where we can honor our story of what we've lived through but where those stories don't make the home. A home that will absolutely still be a home of grace.
And today, in just a few hours, this home that helped to build us, will officially become somebody elses. What a bittersweet moment for me. I am extremely excited and ready for the things to come, but this home.. it will forever hold a place in my heart, it will always be an important part of my story and of my healing. It is, however, simply time for us to move on.
