Foundations

July 14, 2017

Sometime while I was repairing the garage floor, we accumulated a few extra grandkids for the night. Two of them I knew were coming; the other two were firmly ensconced in the back room with our regulars. Cameron and Ellie are up from Texas, visiting their old stomping grounds; those two I knew were coming. Izzi’s friends Hailey and Kaitlyn were our surprise guests. It can be a bit tricky finding enough floor space for everyone, but we seem to manage. Let’s see…the count right now is eight regulars and four honorary grandkids. Breakfast tomorrow will be interesting.

The garage floor repair is framed in; a replacement joist for the one that dry-rotted, plus about ten cross ties for support. It was a day-long job, cutting out the old and framing in the new, but the foundation is in. Laying the foundation for the kids sprawled throughout the house can’t be done in a day. That work is measured in years, but it is worth the work. Truth be told, most of the time, it’s no work at all; they are fun to have around, and it is a privilege to be able to build into their lives. 

St. Paul told the Corinthian Christians that he had laid the only foundation worth building on: Jesus Christ. It was up to them to build well upon it. Prayer by prayer, hug by hug, example after example, we are laying a foundation of faith and faithfulness, of love and grace, of peace and laughter. As the years go by, we will watch them build. We won’t live long enough to see the finished structure of their lives, but that doesn’t matter. Eternity will offer plenty of time to see what we now behold only in our minds. In the meantime, we give thanks for foundations, of whatever sort they may be.