Hope Comes Through A Hole In My Wall

Anyone else living in a trashed house? I do. It’s the kind where rays of sunshine pour over beautifully painted walls – well, mostly, except for the place where our 8 year old kicked a hole through one in a rage months ago. Or where doors are missing from being slammed through frames. Or where carpet has zig-zags of missing pile after the Timed-Out-One took her anger out on it.

The brokeness reveals the beauty.

Life with behavioral special needs ain’t pretty. And our poor homes know that just as well as our families – trying their best to live well despite the challenges, often not seeming to measure up to them.

But you know what? There have been a few holes in the wall that I haven’t patched… for a reason. They’re a memorial to the challenges we HAVE managed to overcome. Like the one made by a child diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder after years in foster care, who recently graduated from that diagnosis and now has friends and shows care for others. And the one made by her little sister who used to be incontinent, but with tireless effort in physical therapy, has more control over that part of her life (and the shame-based-rage that used to come with it).

Those holes – household blemishes to an outsider – mean wholeness in the lives of my children. They are some of my favorite family portraits. And someday, when we move to a new home and begin afresh, I’ll miss our beaten up house. It’s where our family began and where our children wrestled free of the hopelessness of foster care and of feeling like victims to mental illness.

This hole-y house is truly a holy place. A place set-apart in my heart for the beauty that comes with all the bedlam. Here, through holes in lives and holes in walls, I’ve seen God do miracles.

What about you? When you look around your house, what do you see?

-Laurie

(Photo Source)

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