For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

2 Corinthians 5:1

Counting back, it has been fourteen days since my last “restoration” update from our home (the title was “I can almost taste it…”). So it was very gratifying to return from Michigan to find more progress underway and then – Tuesday – the installation of maybe two-thirds of the new driveway.

With the promise of good weather continuing and the pavers on hand there is a better than good chance I can photograph the completed work sometime next week.

In the meanwhile, we are pleased with how it looks. The pavers offer a more finished look than poured concrete and – like the granite retaining walls – the project fits both the look of the house and the vision we have for the entire property.

It’s interesting that the majority of the hard work – the work that really counts – is under the surface. Removal of the original materials, digging out dirt, bringing in the Bobcat, grading, foundation material, tamping, sand, more aggregate, tamping, more sand, more aggregate, final grading, more tamping – then the pavers, what we actually see on the surface.

Then I think about pretty much anything we build: relationships, family, a church, this nation… The same principles apply. All the layers that go into building: the vision, the trust, the investment, the raw materials of time and resources and care and love and belief.

In a sense this is the constant rhythm of life: the costly investment, the hard work, the building, the satisfaction – and sometimes the tearing down, the decay, the betrayals, the loss, the disappointments and the hard reset. There is an ebb and flow, some of it by design then some of it not what we had anticipated at all.

However, as Paul wrote, while life may be like this, yet “we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands…”

It helps to keep this truth in mind and everything temporal in its proper perspective.

This is not just a good thing to know but an actual plan, because as Paul went on to say, “so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 5:4-5).

So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life