My Painful Mansion

A few weeks ago in church a speaker used the following quote from C.S. Lewis:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

I love the religious musings of C.S. Lewis, and I have always loved that analogy because I know it to be true. The trials I experience don't make sense and are so painful at times. I try to remember others, whose lives are far worse than mine; after all I am very blessed. But sometimes, it's hard to trust God to rebuild my house and I long for that simple cottage.