Foundations

I was recently reminded about how important having a level surface and a good foundation is to any building.  We have been saving for some sort of storage building here at the WGM student center and when we saw that they were on sale at Lowes, we bought a kit for the 10' by 10' Heartland shed.  According to the directions, only 'intermediate' building skills were required, and I was confident that along with some help from some college guys I could get it up and save the center the $1450 fee for assembling and painting the shed.

I have done enough building to know that you don't skimp on the foundation, so we worked hard for several hours leveling blocks for the floor.

Everything lined up well, so we built the decking and lifted it into place.  For some reason, when the floor was in place the level from front to back remained perfect, but from left to right it appeared a little off.  Knowing that we would have to remove the decking and reset probably 9  of the 12 leveling blocks, we joked that it was 'within tolerance' and moved on to the next step.

Maybe the large stop sign on these directions should have been a clue to me to start the leveling process over!

The walls went up easily and the rafters did too, and we thought we must have been 'level enough' for the structure until we started adding the plywood to the roof.  I am still not sure how it happened, but while one side of the roof went up perfectly, the other side just wouldn't fit together right.  Strange overlapping made the plywood not line up with the rafters correctly.  The whole east side of the roof was somehow skewed.  I guess 'within tolerance' wasn't good enough.

The finished product (minus the contrasting trim paint).

We did get the roof on, and I am confident that short of a tornado, it will be around for many useful years. Buy I know I spent more time correcting for the 'within tolerance' mistake than I would have spent leveling those blocks correctly at the outset.

Foundations are also critical in a child's life.  Biological or adopted, the foundational months and years of a child's life are so important in helping to set the course for success.  We adopted our children while they were pretty young, but even their short lives before coming into our family has shown me so clearly how important foundational things are: being touched, talked to, held, loved on, rocked, sung to...  Just being fed and kept alive is apparently 'within tolerance' for so many orphanages including Elisona's!  Praise God 'Within tolerance' wasn't good enough for Reni's orphanage though, and how thankful we are for every volunteer that ever held our son and prayed over him and sang to him!  This evening I was reading the blog of some friends who have adopted older children whose foundations were severely damaged.  The wounds from years in an orphanage are so deep that they seem unable to accept the love of their parents.  They push away the very thing that could help bring healing!  The process seems hard if not impossible.  Many of us do the same thing with our heavenly Father too.  Pushing Him away in anger for hurts in our past when His love is what can begin the healing! 

After reading our friend's blog and praying for them tonight, I was reminded of God's promise:

 25I will restore to you the years

   that the swarming locust has eaten,

 the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,

   my great army, which I sent among you.

 26"You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,

   and praise the name of the LORD your God,

   who has dealt wondrously with you.

                   Joel 2:25-26 ESV

How awesome is it that we serve a God that can restore lost years!  We have seen God restoring the years the locust ate in Ellie's life, and can praise the name of the LORD our God, who has dealt wondrously with us!