When we sat down to do our Yates Family Vision session in January of 2020 (an annual tradition since our first year married), we held a handful of dreams.
One dream was to watch our little girl finish Kindergarten and start 1st grade at her dearly loved school. Thankfully we did get to celebrate her finish to Kindergarten (maybe a little extra), because it was after months of being the only kid in her class with me as her teacher…
Two other dreams consisted of planned family trips: one to Disney World, and the other the trip of a lifetime to Hawaii that included my mom! Our girl was so excited (we all were!), she was chomping at the bit to learn about our beautiful floating state. The house was brimming with luau music all winter long while we were blissfully unaware that every season this year would be spent largely listening to music in our house!
But another dream, a big and beautiful dream, came to us unexpectedly, as a miracle really, just a couple weeks into 2020…
For half of 2020 we carried this private joy — the hope of a miracle child and answer to many prayers, especially those of our little girl for a sibling. As much as we tried to not get our “hopes up” (my husband is much better at this than I am), it is nearly impossible for a woman who believes she is “expecting” to resist imagining a new life in her heart and home — even after multiple losses in this area! As we arranged logistics with lawyers and the year went on I pictured the Fall and Christmas season sweetly adorned with our girl enjoying a new baby brother or sister. It would seem the crib I couldn’t bring myself to tear down — in “the baby room” — would actually hold a little wiggly one again.
It felt too good to be true, and I wondered over how Abraham and Sarah must have felt receiving the gift of a baby later in life. Even as we navigated the challenges of Covid-19 rationing toilet paper, managing virtual school and sitting for all the Zoom calls, the hope of goodness ahead filled my soul with laughter because I was reminded that we serve a God who can bring life from death, light to darkness, and babies to barren people!
Now I’m going to pause this story for a moment, I’ll pick back up with it later because I want to weave in our home renovation here. I know it feels strange to take such a turn, but in so many ways this creative endeavor became a tangible form of hope for us as we moved forward trusting God with us. Our renovations were not just about making our spaces shiny and new. With infertility, adoption, and fostering it can often feel like you have no control over the fullness of your womb or home. This is simply not the case for the believer in Jesus, though coming to this understanding takes soul work. So let’s look at the renovation process for our home now, and I’ll show you how God has used it to do a deeper work of restoration for our hearts, and still is, before we go, ok?
Let me start by saying these renovations had been on our Yates Family Vision worksheets for many years. We had even planned to start them several years ago, but family plans changed and our finances were redirected which, at the end of all things, is just fine with us. We held a dream of attempting them in a few years, but then the virus changed everything, which in this one area of our lives was actually a good thing! We learned our trip to Hawaii, and pretty much everything else we had planned for months, was canceled. We also wanted to channel our mixed emotions about the possible impending adoption into something constructive — and designing beautiful spaces in our home has been a therapeutic healing for us in times past. At the same time interest rates took a dive making home projects financially do-able. Since we already designed the projects (in our minds), had weekends completely free to oversee the work ourselves, and had traveling savings, we realized the perfect storm of Covid-19 at least presented this window of opportunity to roll up our sleeves and get our home ready for a (hopefully) new season of gathering — whatever that would mean!
The other day I walked by a room and realized, “Oh yeah, we totally changed this room too!” We had so much dust, upheaval and tarped mazes for so long, by the fifth month (the total “reno season” was from April to November) I was losing track of what stage we were at in our crazy transformation journey! This is how growth, and grief, is sometimes. Things can turn into such a state of mess, it’s hard to see where you were before or imagine how you can ever be whole again. It is tempting to despair in this place, if we believe we are in chaos. I had to continually remember though that chaos is when there is no plan or order, and with God we always have hope of an ultimate order for all things. But to bring a little perspective to our epic renovations, here is a list of the projects we tackled in just 8 months:
Let’s take a breather for a moment, ok? I need to take a nap.
Writing down all the things that HAPPENED in a year (or a week even) is a healthy exercise because often we can feel like we have accomplished nothing in our lives. Truth is, God moves in and through us in ways we forget or don’t notice, and it’s honoring to both Him and our souls to go back and name all the wonderful works in our lives.
But we aren’t talking about that stuff right now, we are on a home renovation tour! If you need a soul-healthy way to move forward from 2020 though (or any miserable season) consider my New Year’s post and be sure not to miss it by signing up for my newsletter.
If you were coming over for coffee, I’d greet you outside first. So let’s start here!
First, let me officially say Welcome.
Welcome, I should clarify, to the shadow of our home. I use that phrase as a reminder to my own soul that this too, as lovely as it is, is still not our Home. Our real one is still under construction in the Heavenlies…and will hopefully have a view of the sea!
When we got married our home had a tan vinyl siding, red brick front facing, a single front door with partial sidelights, tan rails and what seemed like (when cleaning them) a thousand balusters (spindles). We daydreamed of peeling off the vinyl, painting the brick, sealing the garage (not seen here) and making it all coordinate together in a modern white farmhouse aesthetic, but we did just the essentials for years.
I first started decorating my own home space in the 90’s, and quickly became a fan of the “shabby chic” style. I loved the bright, soft colors and textures, and the distressed look in general. I wanted to feel cozy at home, reminded of beauty and goodness, and for me personally this did it for me.
Later I married this love for whites, brights, soft textures and distressed surfaces with the modern rustic feel, which especially worked well since I found myself married to a boy who lived on a hay farm.
We decided that “someday” we would try German smear on the red brick, peel off the vinyl on the house and try a board and batten design, to coordinate with our garage that already had a tight version of a similar pattern.
So “Welcome” again, but now to the new look:
In order to off-set the all-over bright white, we talked about warming it up with modern rustic beams, and stainless steel cable railings. (It was so hard to see out sitting on the front porch for all the white spindles, the cable makes it nearly see-through!)
Jonathan also had the brilliant idea to carry the warmth of the wood up onto the ceiling, both off our garage, at the side entrance, over the back basement entrance and on our front porch. It makes a huge impact! Throw in new black iron lighting, fans and a doorbell (not seen here but Ring is so great!)
Before I show the finished look though, these are some of our messy moments along the way…
This room has gone from the saddest to the cheeriest in the house, even our girl delights in doing laundry chores in here! I don’t know how I forgot to take pictures of the “before” in here, but this image pretty much sums up how pitiful it was with it’s dated wallpaper trim along the top and a bulkhead that accomplished nothing for us (we already removed it before I remembered to take before photos!)
Now I definitely remembered to get “before pictures” of the kitchen!
So again, before I reveal our current and new kitchen reality, you need to know how awful things were in here…for what felt like the rest of our days:
The washroom wasn’t the only room I forgot to get a “before” picture of — our deep wild cherry guest bathroom with a pedestal sink and silver mirror also got the cold shoulder. It was time to bring in a lighter feel for our guests, especially as they sought a little private sanctuary! To tie in the more natural tones we were bringing in to our modern farmhouse, we added some deep evergreen as an accent, continued our high gloss white, and updated the sink, hardware, mirror and lighting! Voila, a place for any passerby to take a deep breath (without a mask!)
As if that wasn’t enough renovation for one year, for one home, we actually had more indoor renovations that I’ll summarize briefly here. We changed out entryway lighting, painted trim throughout the house bright white, and added built-in bookshelves to the upstairs playroom (to hide A/C duct work for the kitchen, but hey, we love it and use it so it’s all a part of the design process!)
Especially now that we had a new treehouse on one side of our property, we never went to the basement side of our property. In fact, since it tended to stay marshy after rainy days, we rarely even went to that side of the house, unless it was Easter and an Easter egg hunt demanded creative new spots.
So after much consideration we decided that while we had the yard all torn to pieces, and family could gather more in the summer with the help of a heated pool, we took the big plunge to put a pool in too!
This last part of our story is what has kept me from sharing this post for over two months. I have been stuck with the ending, looping a pitiful one that felt hopeless and honestly, bitter. After much prayer, lamenting, attempting to write but feeling still bitter in my heart — I have chosen instead to listen quietly, post less frequently, and have been waiting for God’s perspective in how this 2020 story ends.
Afterall, I may have authored these books, but He is the Author of me!
As you can probably guess, at some point close to the baby’s delivery others’ minds — and all the plans — changed.
We were not going to bring a baby home.
Not only that, instead of celebrating a little bundle of joy we experienced a newly revived round of hostile correspondences related to our adoption story. I was heartbroken. We made the decision to limit our exposure on social media as I resisted fear that dark clouds were reforming over our lives.
It felt cruel, to be honest. Like a kick when we were already down.
Ironically, the next day I had plans to board a plane for Little Rock, Arkansas, to do a podcast interview. FamilyLife Ministries invited me to share about my newest book, A Mother of Thousands…all about God’s hope for us when we experience broken dreams in motherhood. (You can find links to the 3-day podcast series here!)
Little did I know when I agreed to do the interview months before, I would be speaking truth to my own broken heart as I shared this motherhood message. In hindsight, I’m actually glad I didn’t know. One day’s concerns ended up being plenty, one day at a time living was enough. We needed to learn to grow slow, and I see it better now. If I knew too much I’d be tempted to rush myself. Do you tend to hurry God along with your own healing? We’ll have a lot to share together around a table in Heaven — and we won’t be wearing masks!
I had a full day in a hotel room before the interview by myself to wrestle with God. I burned with questions, raw pain and fragile faith that I ultimately submitted again to Him. I felt His peace flood my heart not a moment too soon, and as I spoke the next day I felt Him continually washing that peace over me. Grief wouldn’t really hit me until the Fall, as I felt the season marching along without the baby I imagined. As we put the finishing touches on a playroom, with no baby for the crib. Then again God’s timing proved to be by design: the podcast series aired, and I came back again to remember our story.
I kept remembering God’s goodness, His beauty, the way He has moved in our lives and brought us through other seasons of darkness, back into light.
I grieved, and I remembered with gratitude His goodness in the midst of my sorrows.
I grieved, and I remembered with gratitude how He is still the God who brings life from death, light to darkness and babies to barren couples.
Remembering God with us in our story reminded me of why Jesus had to come. The world is dark. Hearts feel it, you feel it don’t you? We all long for light, goodness, beauty, everlasting life!
So, God sent Him. The One we long for but all-too-often forget.
This month God has reminded me too how He brought a baby to this Earth that no one ever expected, that no one could ever conceive without Him, and one whom no one deserved.
God showed me the end of our story was not with a failure to bring a baby home. The end of our story, and every human story, can end and then really start with a baby being born to us, for us.
God is helping me see Jesus this month, born to me, for me, at Christmas.
I may not be able to hold a new baby in my arms, but I can hold the real hope of Jesus born in my heart in a new way.
If you’ve stayed for this whole journey, I commend you, and would offer you a cookie if you were here.
Somehow moving from dark to light in our home aesthetic, creating open spaces for light to flood us and draw us to see the beauty surrounding us always, in every season, is helping me see the work God is doing in our hearts, too. I have felt every stage of the process this year in my soul, the disaster zone feeling especially delayed.
Especially this year it has been easy to see what is broken, falling apart at the seams and what is in desperate need for repair. It’s true of our world, but my goodness, it’s true of my world, too. What is hard to notice, and easy to overlook, is what is surrounding us still. It may be that our view is blocked, and we need to bust some walls first. I’m seeing how good Jesus is at this, and how much I need His help to do the work.
We may need to open spaces wider to take in more beauty — maybe writing our gratitudes, singing them out, chalking them on our walls…whatever we can do to make room for celebrating what is still good.
I’m learning with Jesus how to dismantle walls of bitterness, how to extend room for forgiveness and let in hope for new joy in a lighter space where He floods my heart with His goodness again.
Like our once empty field, where it was wild and neglected, I feel hope rising for more life ahead, in all forms. I think of this verse that comforted me so many times during hard and heavy days longing to become parents:
Then the wilderness will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.
Isaiah 32:15b, NLT
I don’t know what a “fertile field” can look like in my life. I am getting some glimpses by what I see happening on our property — relationships growing closer, conversations moving deeper, children laughing and etching memories of joy from their childhood, and adults playing again like in their youth.
And I don’t know how long we will get to live here, in this shadow of our home. But I know this: we don’t live here alone.
We live here with God with us.
We live in a dark world where we can shine with Jesus, making spirits bright.
We have a baby, here, this Christmas, in our home, in 2020.
We have Him in our hearts.
And we have Him in our stories, forever, and ever, Amen.
Merry Christmas friends, may your new year be “bright”!
When we sat down to do our Yates Family Vision session in January of 2020 (an annual tradition since our first year married), we held a handful of dreams. One dream was to watch our little girl finish Kindergarten and start 1st grade at her dearly loved school. Thankfully we did get to celebrate her
