build
How do you know?
When it’s time to build? Time to tear down? Time to repair? Time to start over?
My own life feels like a series of tearing down and tearing down. Then building part of something.
Then tearing it down again.
(You always build it better the second time around)
Some things need to be destroyed in order for the world to be better. For your family to be better. For you to be better. But there is something so sacred about what you built that tearing it down feels like you are ripping your heart right out of your chest. Because you don’t build something that doesn’t matter to you. Good or bad.
You build it precisely because you believe it’s important. Necessary. Key to your life’s happiness. So to tear that down means more then just tear it down.
It means tearing yourself down.
Which means you have to build something else. Which was hard enough the first time, right? But when what you built must be torn down it means so much of what you thought to be good and true and right is no longer good and true and right. So you must rediscover what else is good.
And true. And right.
Then build from there. Hoping that each brick that you take from a memory or experience or a person will not be torn down next time because it’s like taking pieces of your heart and building something new.
Stephanie Nelson 
This was a thought-provoking post! Thank you for writing and sharing with Five Minute Friday!
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Great post! So glad to have you join us at FMF where we are neighbors this week. Your post reminded me of the text “a time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to build etc.”
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Well-said, Stephanie.
One of my hobbies (when I was well enough to pursue it) was building aeroplanes…yes, full-sized flyable aeroplanes from raw materials.
I always aimed at 'flyable', but there were those builders who wanted perfection, and they'd end up building three aeroplanes to complete one. The parts they discarded were airworthy…but not up to their standards.
They had a personal goal, and were disciplined in accepting the need to start over to get there.
Me, I just embraced the Ugly. Long as it don't come to bits in the air, I'm happy.
#1 at FMF this week.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2016/07/your-dying-spouse-178-something-big-fmf.html
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I'm a bit behind you on FMF this week at #7.
And the process of building, I can totally relate! In athletics, this is the process of muscle building. Tear, repair, tear, repair, building upon the old and never stopping.
Thank you for sharing!
Love,
Tammy
(tammysincerity)
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Thanks for sharing your heart. The process of tearing down in order to build up is heart wrenching at times and then allowing things to be torn down once again is challenging but sometimes needful. Good reminder. Grace to you! FMF #11
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Welcome to FMF – so glad to have you. Years and years ago, I had to completely tear myself down and then rebuild. It was worth it. #18 at FMF today!
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Love this Stephanie. Speaks to me of the changing of seasons. In one season the leaves appear only to disappear a few seasons later. It also speaks to me about how we change as we age. Love the way that Muhammed Ali put it: “A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”
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