“Brick by Brick” is a story I wrote three days ago, late at night when my house was quiet and my mind was not. I’ve been thinking about, praying about, writing about redemption a lot lately. I read Job last month and couldn’t stop thinking about the duality of redemption. When the Lord promises to redeem the darkest parts of our lives, we know we will be gifted far more than what was lost, but the loss aches in the meantime and the grief never disappears; it just changes. But in the midst of mourning we find the faithfulness of God, and it roots us, provides us a foundation, a stable place to rest. And from that barren, mercifully stable earth, God starts to build something new.
At least, that’s how it was for me.
I kept trying to write about redemption, of the ways I am seeing it in my life and glimpse it on the horizon, but the words never felt right. “Brick by Brick” is unlike anything I’ve ever written, but the Lord led me to the poetic prose I needed to record my story (and share it, as nerve-wracking as that is). And to add to the vulnerability, I’m including an audiorecording I made while editing. I heard the story in my mind as I typed, heard the places I paused and emphasized and wasn’t sure if I’d laugh or cry. I think there’s something special about the reader putting their own voice to my words, but if you want a glimpse of how it sounds in my mind, the audio is at the end of the story.
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“Brick by Brick”
Job’s story ends in restoration, and mine will, too. But Job’s story is his and mine is mine and while he greatly suffered and was greatly restored, my restoration is slower. More gradual. Brick by brick, such subtle changes in construction that sometimes I do not notice what the Lord has done until I walk outside and the frame is completed, a wall is bricked, the drywall is installed.
I live and I break and I remember and I remember and I remember and I praise and I cry and I remember and I remember and I remember and I laugh and I lament and I remember and I remember and I remember. And He builds. We sit together a lot, me and Him, sometimes me and Him and Memory. We sit and He holds my hand, and I thank Him, and I grasp onto Him so tightly it is a miracle He can simultaneously soothe and construct.
He never stops building. Some days I sit in the grass while He works, telling Him about the wildflowers I saw on the side of the road and the starling perched on a telephone wire. He listens, always listens, even though He created the flower and the bird, placed them in my path because He knew they would make me smile. Some days He holds me while I cry, and others He holds me as I scream at Him, and other times still I have locked the doors to my current home, my not-yet home, and I watch Him from the window, still building and building and building. He brings me gifts for the new house, coffee cups and picture frames, the trinkets mixing with all the presents he has already granted me while in my not-yet home, gifts I can never earn and will never deserve and yet was given so freely. There are bigger gifts, too, ones I experience through blurred eyes of thankfulness—He lets me look at the blueprints, feel the sturdiness of the floors, run my hand along the bookshelves. I fill the shelves with journals, accounts of the things that have happened and the things He has done. There are spaces on the shelves, times I couldn’t write. He fills them with verses written long ago, just for me yet also for billions of others, tells me it’s okay, tells me those years are over and I am not lost, I was never lost. He hands me journals now, ones I can’t fill fast enough. Sometimes I kick the house, beg Him to build faster. I ask Him why so many storms have slowed the process, why He let the wild world crack the foundation and snap the beams. He lays His tools down for a moment, comes to me in silence. He kisses my forehead, the softest touch I’ve ever felt, and returns to His work. The kiss lingers, burns into my skull and melts into my bloodstream and circles, circles, circles, keeping the memories at bay, coating the waiting in peace.
One day soon I will be in the house. I am in the doorway now, the walls bare but standing, the floor solid beneath me. I’m sure the waiting will change and He will not. It will be us, sitting on the floor, and then He will bring me furniture, soft places to rest. The house will be filled with voices, some of the same that fill my heart now and new ones I ache to discover. And some days I will forget that even as I move into this home, and as it and I change, He is building me another home, too. I get so focused on this next one that I forget there is another. I never liked gold much before I knew Him. Now I can’t wait to sit with Him on golden floors, not because there is no furniture but because we just want to sit and take it all in like we used to. “You made this for me?” I’ll whisper, still holding His hand. He will nod, place another kiss on my forehead. “Did you ever stop building?” He will shake his head, kiss both of my cheeks. “What about at the old house, when I yelled at You, when I tried to paint the walls myself, when you handed me the keys and I didn’t invite you over for weeks, when I complained about the fixtures you chose?” Each time He will answer, “Not even then,” in the softest voice that pierces my heart, cupping my face in His hands, grounding me to the here and now, here and now, here and now. And then we will weep until we start to laugh again, and we will have a picnic on the floor and everything from before will be a memory, only a memory, just a memory. And I will fall asleep in His arms as the old things fall away.