Glory House is Still Going
Five years ago, I was buying bricks and building a house. Not just any house - a house named Glory House. Glory House was a vision from God - a way to live out the purpose He shaped me with. To be Mom of the house in order to strengthen families and build His family.
My pile of bricks was right in the middle of rural South Africa. It was just Lifa and I back then, but there was going to be a huge kitchen to teach mamas nutrition and how to cook for their babies. There was going to be a whole extra wing of the house to bring in moms and babes for restoration and discipleship while learning health and safety. It was bigger version of what I was already doing from my tiny cottage.
I took a photo shoot with Lifa and the bricks, but can’t find them anywhere. Here’s the foundation being dug.
And then came Chris Ladd. That handsome man flipped my world and all its blueprints upside down. In 2015, Chris and I stood on the foundation of Glory House and wondered. We had just decided to combine our lives and had no idea what the details would look like. I had a 7-year old and was building a house on a ministry base. He was the County Director of another ministry. Would we live in this Glory House together? Would I join his ministry? Would he join mine? (We didn’t have a clue we’d be starting a whole new journey with a whole new set of questions soon after.)
Just a few months later, I said tearful goodbyes to the families I’d been working with and started a whole new family. I left the pile of bricks I’d called Glory House behind and never looked back. For a while, instead of bathing, feeding and teaching rural Africa’s most adorable little ones, life looked more like learning how to co-parent, share a bed, and deciphering two unspoken sets of kitchen rules. (Eat Lifa’s lunchbox snacks, and prepare for the wrath of a mama lion.)
The Ladd Family has inhabited 8 houses in the last 4 years. To say the least, that is a lot of kitchen and furniture strategizing. We’ve learned how to be a family, added to our family, and even sent some of our smallest family members straight to heaven. We’ve made the two-day drive across the country countless times and gotten really good at creating home wherever we are. We are rockstars at moving and the fastest unpackers you’ve ever met. We feel like we deserve a gold medal in the category of “Becoming a Family in a Foreign Country While Moving One Million Times” and have a love-hate relationship with our ginormous couch.
We’ve been propelled by purpose every step of the way. Some moves were to create more space for ministry, some to create a better environment for Lifa, and some to get to know the areas where we want to start Love Jesus Church.
This 5-year old painting by my little sis has been displayed in every house we’ve lived in.
Every time we’ve unpacked it, I’ve let my thoughts wander for just a moment and think, “Why, God?” Why did You give me a dream for Glory House? Why would You name it? Why did You provide the funds and the bricks for it? Why did You put such passion and purpose in me for building a home and then have me move 8 times? Did I miss the mark?
We still haven’t hung up the Glory House painting in our new house. It’s propped up where I want it to be hung but has been forgotten in all the other things to do. I think it’s time to hang it.
Something has just started to dawn on me as I reflect on this past week. I spread my picnic blanket in the yard for bonding with the boys and an important identity-shaping conversation with Lifa. We pulled weeds and planted a garden full of veggies, purely for the purpose of doing something besides homework together. A newly single mom came over to learn how to exercise, asking to be equipped with just one tool to empower her in her new life. I sat on the floor with another mom and baby in our nursery while we sorted out books for her to borrow from the Ladd Family Library and shared openly about real life struggles. We moved our coffee table out of the way for toddlers and filled our jumbo couch with moms and babies for a beautiful morning of ministry with our new Help Club for Moms. I prepared an American-style taco night for a South African pastoral family. A friend came over for lunch, heart-shaped cookies and heartfelt conversation about hopes and dreams. And a happy, healthy baby boy learned how to roll! This house is starting to hold glory stories greater than I couldn’t have imagined when we stood by that pile of bricks years ago.
I never understood why God would give me a dream for a Glory House and never let me finish building it. His blueprints turned out to be much greater than mine. We needed a dad. We needed to be able to build Glory House wherever we are in whatever we’re doing. Our purpose stays the same, but the walls around it look different in different days and seasons.
Some of you may be seeking your Glory House, seeking Your purpose or the means to live it out. Some may be in your moving season, learning how to live where you or planted or in the circumstances life has dished out. And some may be building or already thriving in your Glory House. Some days it’s glorious, and some nights there are lots of dishes to wash. And all of it holds value. Remember that you are purposed on this earth. You are important, and your life matters. Live fully right where you are, and you might be surprise at the Glory House God is building in you.
