Destroyed NOW Rebuilt

So I wrote a blog post a few weeks back called Destroy to Rebuild tying in the plight of my New Hampshire home to our own lives - and just showing a bunch to pretty bad photos of my house.  So this post is a little Paul Harvey, "The Rest of the Story" moment. [If you just want to see the pictures, just go ahead and scroll down]

After working with the slow moving, but eventually effective insurance claims adjuster Mercy McLaughlin (yes her name really was Mercy), I received a check and finally began rebuilding our home.  Now of course, I couldn't cash the check myself.  I had to send the $47,000 check to my mortgage holder who gave me a pile of paperwork and a few William Wallace-esque task ("Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse.") before they would send me a penny of the money - and I still haven't yet received a dime yet.  Nevertheless, the home is almost complete and it is more beautiful than before, but still different.

So how about a mini metaphor here.  Why the heck not, it's my blog.  As I said in my birthday post: 

"Life will knock you flat on your butt time and time again (that is "arse" to William Wallace) - stand up spit in its eye and ask "more please."  Then when life gives you "more please" and when you are on your butt again it is acceptable to cry for a moment (except in baseball), but you still must to stand up once more."

When you stand up and begin to rebuild, you need a little mercy to help you get going once again (yes I did pun my adjusters name - deal with it).  Mercy may take its time, but it comes through.  Even then, once you begin to rebuild, there will be people throwing obstacles in your way for no good reason at all.  You have to dig through that; do the "paperwork," as it were.  Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, but reserve for God that which is God's.  No one will give you a free ticket and often no one will be able to give you a hand.  It's your "property" to own and be responsible for.  You have to do that by yourself.  You are the owner.  There is also an element of putting trust in those who can help you (like a builder you can only supervise from across the country).  At the end of it though, rebuilding can be beautiful and here at the pictures. [continued at the bottom - bottom of the post, not "arse"]

So the house looks great and let's hope it sells.  I will finish the metaphor with my own observation; the house is beautiful, but it is not the same.  That is often the cost of destruction and rebuilding. Most things, people, relationship, lives, etc. can be rebuilt (isn't that what we are selling each Sunday at church), but they are never the same.  Often they are better; sometimes worse; but always different.  Like my house, many of the bumps and scratches and dings that were earned by a family living life to its fullest over seven years have been erased.  Like they never happened, just memories and photographs now.  It is now a blank slate for someone else to write their memories on, to make their own holes in the walls and scratches in the floor.  Still this house and our "houses" will continue on, stronger from being torn down to the frame and then being able to stand beautiful again, but changed forever from the experience.