I am choosing to build

 When I was a little girl, we loved to play in the woods behind our house.  All the neighborhood kids would go back into the woods and find trails, foundations from old homes and look for places to play.  I remember a time when we found a foundation from a building.  It was solid concrete, and there were trees all around it.  My siblings and I decided we would build ourselves a fort in this round area.  We found wood planks, 4x4's, and we spent a lot of time with no parental guidance hammering nails into planks on trees.  We spent the majority of our time dreaming about what it could be, my sisters brought toys to a small cave area we found.
       We played back there for most of the summer and fall, disappearing, working, and playing.  We invited our cousins and our friends to come back and play with us, and then winter came, and we didn't play outside as much.  The following spring we decided to go back, and our fort was torn down.  Other kids decided they were going to claim the area, the ripped our planks out, they destroyed all our work, and I am pretty sure there may have been some fighting that happened as we struggled with our precious fort being torn down.  Many kids since then have made forts back in that similar area, my own nieces discovered the same exact spot and built their own fort back there as well.   But nothing ever stayed permanent on that foundation, and nothing stands there today other than the foundation.
      I think about the fort, the foundation, and the failure of making anything that lasts.  We were not trained, we were kids who thought if we pounded some nails in boards the structures would be amazing, but our reality was vastly different than our vision. The pathway between vision and reality is an intentional one.  As an adult, I shake my head smiling, seeing where we failed. We never invited experts into our process, we wanted to do it, with our limited expertise and our grand vision we built something temporary on a permanent foundation.  In Proverbs 14:1 it says "The wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands."   This scripture speaks as both an encouragement and a warning to me and I want to share what I have learned about this passage.
Wisdom Builds
When we speak of wisdom, I love that the Proverbs includes both men and women in the wisdom of the community.  We carry influence, and we as women of valor can build something permanent on a strong foundation, but that means we have a responsibility to do this to the best of our ability.  When we are women of valor, we live foundational truths, and we model it to our children.  This may mean watching how you dress, watching what you say, and being careful of how you live.  There is a phrase 'more is caught than taught,' and it is true because our kids will model what we do, not what we say.  When we choose to live God's way, then we choose the fruits of the spirit which are:  love, joy, peace, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  This means we spend time in the word and in a relationship with God, we assess our fruits then check our hearts.  A wise woman seeks counsel from those who have gone before her.  I remember a time when I reached out to a woman that bore the fruit I wanted.  She had daughters, they were serving Jesus, they were blessed, and they were thriving.  So I sought her out intentionally and asked questions about how she raised them.  Another woman is a strong business woman, so I sought her out to ask her questions about having a healthy team.  I will always consult an expert and surround myself with mentors who will prune me intentionally.  When I was young, I thought I had everything I needed to be successful I didn't need any help, and I could do everything, as a wise woman I have gained the understanding that I need to seek the advice of wise women who know my heart and love me.
Fools Destroy
I have watched women tear down their children, I have seen them destroy their marriages, I have seen them ruin work cultures. Now, I will pause and say this is not exclusive to women, men have done the same thing, but I want to sit in this place and ask one question: why?  Because they carried deep insecurity that they refused to deal with and it came out in the areas that they were stewarding.  In the same way that I thought that we could make a grand fort, many insecure women refuse to ask for help.  They believe they are wonder woman and then they can make their spouses feel guilty, they manipulate their children, and they make work at times unbearable.  We can build up, but we need to understand we also can destroy the next generation because we didn't deal with our own messes.  Many foolish women have pride and insecurity, and they are two sides of the same coin.   Our pride is a defense mechanism, it doesn't allow others into the change places in our lives.  It keeps others from investing in us, and it keeps our ears deafened to wisdom.  Pride tells us we are confident, we are better than others, we are enough.  But the nucleus of the cell of pride is insecurity.  We know we are not enough, we have fears, and we are terrified that people will find out who we really are.
We Have a Choice
    When we invite wisdom into this place in the form of self-awareness, we allow grace to come in as well.  "I don't know everything, and that is okay." becomes an internal voice in our lives.  We can seek out others, ask questions and listen to the wisdom and knowledge of people who have come before us.  Ladies, we do not have to know it all, we do not have to be polished and put together, we just have to learn to see seek out those who we can learn from. To let our guards down, invite some amazing men and women into our lives, and seek wisdom and knowledge.  You are capable of building your house or tearing it down, let the weight of that sit with you for a minute, then make a choice.   Either choose to intentionally build your house, whatever that is and choose to seek others and invite them into the process.  Let's not build forts, lets build houses firmly planted on Gods word and in a healthy community.