You Can't Rebuild Without Demolition

You Can’t Rebuild Without Some Demolition

When Kathy and I were in Oregon, we remodeled our 1904 farmhouse twice.

Both times were awful.

I remember when the contractor finished ripping the roof off 75% of the house, my wife looked at her ceilingless kitchen and cried.

During both remodels, we’d find unexpected problems.

There was dry rot, cracks in the foundation, and the first time we had to crawl under the house and spend hours digging giant holes so that a more solid foundation could be built.

That’s what’s happening in America right now.

It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, and it’s messy.

As our nation begins to unpack the damage done by years of corruption and lies, there’s a stench that permeates the air.

Sometimes we look at the next step, recoil, and wonder if we should slow down and cut a few corners.

If the rot is not removed completely the cancer will eventually come back.

Each day, our newsfeeds are plugged with more bad news from the contractor, explaining why the remodel is going to take longer and cost more.

Unexpected, unexplained, and underestimated damage done, that must be dealt with before things get better.

Americans are not known for their patience.

We like things fixed fast, or we ignore them and let the next guy fix them.

The long haul is how our forefathers saw things, but modern conveniences spoil us into a false sense of expectation, and that means get it done or get it out of my mind.

We have a chief contractor who understands, remodeling anything is a process.

I remember our contractor coming to us and sharing the bad news of another unexpected setback.

He never held back but had a plan to get us on board with as little resistance as possible.

He used to remind us of our goals.

He told us not to look at the setbacks but to look beyond the horizon to a warm, cozy farmhouse preserved for another one hundred years.

Imagine overhauling a nation.

You have a percentage of the country saying, What we have has value and needs to be overhauled, but not kicked to the curb.

You have others who know the foundation is cracked and needs repair, but would rather ignore the problems because they are afraid to do what needs to be done.

And then you’ve got this group, with narrow vision, that refuses to crawl under the house and look at the structural problems and instead seeks to blow up the house and start over.

Whenever you start a remodel of a house or a nation, what also gets remodeled is you and me.

We need a vision of what could be, and we have a contractor/president who understands that.

When you’re in the middle of a remodel, it’s easy for hopelessness and turmoil to tempt us into defeat.

There’s always a neighbor or naysayer reminding you how terrible it is and telling you that you should have never started this never-ending process.

At times, you wonder why.

If we don’t complete what we’ve started, I believe we will never save what we have.

There are those hoping that happens, but far more of us see value in our nation, our freedom, and rebuilding what made America great.

Hold on.

You won’t be eating on stacks of sheetrock or celebrating Christmas in an unfinished living room forever.

And when it’s done, it’s never really done, you will have helped create something beautiful that can last another 250 years.