The Reconstruction is Pink

"Now, I told you that last story to tell you this one." -- Ron White

I've never been a pink girl. When I was a kid, I wasn't girly. As a music student in the '90s, I was all about flannel shirts and baggy pants. I've gone through a few extended periods where I didn't wear makeup. For years, my favorite color was a deep, wintery green.

This is going to look like a subject change, but stick with me: My time in Maryland was a Dismantling. God took everything apart - everything I thought I was supposed to do with my life, all I had envisioned my life to be - and I had to watch it go. When I came to Boston, I thought the hard time was over and things would change 180 degrees. But it's been very slow going. Things aren't bad anymore, but they're not great, either. I've asked myself and God so many times what the problem is - are the deficiencies in my life a result of deficiencies in me? - that I've had to stop thinking about it altogether because it drives me nuts.

Then, two weeks ago, I was at church getting prayed for. The girl kept praying for patience, patience, over and over. My internal response was, No! I don't want to need patience! I want the pieces of my life to fall into place, and I've waited so long already. But she kept on praying for patience, so I asked God why I needed it. And here's the answer I got: He is reconstructing what He had dismantled, and it takes time to do it right; Rome wasn't built in a day and all that. Suddenly it all made sense. He hadn't lost the pieces He'd taken apart, nor had He thrown them away. What's more, I realized that God was doing all this in response to crazy prayers I'd prayed years ago when I had no idea what I was in for. I remember sitting on my bed in Brighton, telling God that I wanted to be solid, substantial, that I didn't want surface without foundation. No gaps, I said. Take me all apart and rebuild me from the ground up if You have to, I said. Geez, what was I thinking? (See, this is why God doesn't often tell us the future, or when He does, He doesn't often get specific. Not only would we not pray crazy-bold prayers, we wouldn't leave the house.)

But here I am, 7 years on, in the time of my Reconstruction. And it is pink. When I think of potential finally being fulfilled, vague desires solidifying, things I'd stopped hoping for coming back into view - these thoughts are all pink to me. My new favorite colors are red - deep, velvet blood red; flirtatious, dangerous pomegranite red. To me, the color of this blog is like the glow of a warm home to a stranger who's been out in the dark and cold.

I don't understand much of what happened in Maryland. I have no color for that. But this I do know: The Reconstruction is pink.