the city will be rebuilt on her ruins

Today, I want to share some words with you that aren’t mine, but they’re beautiful and soul-stirring and have brought me some much-needed peace this week. 

In Hannah Brencher’s Book Fighting Forward (which I’m currently reading and adoring), she mentions reading a verse of scripture in the book of Jeremiah that she’d never really noticed before. In verse 18 of chapter 30, her eyes caught on the phrase: 

“The city will be rebuilt on her ruins.” 

Here’s where I want to quote Hannah, to give you the gift of these borrowed words, just like she gave the gift of them to me: 

This is where I have to pause and scratch my head. Like, Did you really mean to do this, God? Did you really mean to rebuild on top of a mess? This is not what I think happens to the ruins in my own story. I do not look at the ugly mounds or pieces of scrap metal and see something to build on. I see something worth hiding and covering up. But to know God is to know he wants your best. Day after day, he wants the most unscripted and unedited version of you. He can always work with that. 

Even though I believe this statement exactly 82 percent of the time, I am still the one who tries frantically to clear the junk away on my own. Like, if God were making house visits, I would be the one piling all the ugly unseen junk into the upstairs closet, thinking to myself, It will be safe and concealed here. 

I picture God strolling into the house and taking a look around. He doesn’t admire what I want him to admire. He doesn’t survey the sturdiness of the IKEA barstools or drool over the chandelier. He simply says, “Can I see the closet?” 

I protest. I start to freak out. I panic, thinking, You cannot handle my mess, the things I’ve hidden there. 

But God in his character is kind and calm as he tells me, “What I will not do is discount your ruins. I want all of you—even the stuff you hid in the guest bedroom closet. I am not throwing away the parts of your story that left you feeling crumbled and defeated. You don’t have to hide those parts. Let’s use them.” 

And with that, God does exactly what that verse in Jeremiah says. He rebuilds a city on top of what once ruined us. 

…

So here’s to throwing open the doors to our guest bedroom closets. To letting God into every closed-off, forgotten corner of our hearts. To letting the Master Builder do His job. 

Here’s to not running away from our ruins. 

Have a good week, my friends. I’m always cheering for you.