It looked like a totally different house.

What once was a pretty unassuming, rather run-down brick rancher with a rickety side porch and grass-covered front drive, was now a thing of beauty.  The house had been completely painted white, the side porch closed-in and adorned with french doors.  The driveway had been expanded into a large semi-circle and even the mailbox had received a fresh coat of white paint.

The new front door bathed in bright blue even matched the accent color on the small business sign that now dangles from the mailbox post.  I couldn’t read what the business was, but I imagine it’s something artistic like a photographer or a graphic designer.

If you hadn’t known the house prior to its makeover, you probably wouldn’t think anything of it.  Just another quaint little home on the main street of town.  But if you had known it before, you couldn’t help but marvel at the transformation.

Especially if you had known it like I did.

This wasn’t just any house.  This was the house where my ex had lived briefly with his family.  It was a place that had held a few good memories for me, but mostly bad ones.  Memories of yelling, fighting, anger and family drama.  I had seen things there that broke my heart and heard hateful words thrown my way on many an occasion.

Even after I had moved on in my life, the house was still an unwelcome reminder of sadder days.  Catching my attention as I drove past it every other day, until it finally began to fade into the background, along with the relationship it witnessed.

Until one day… it reappeared.

Not because it wanted to remind me of any trauma or painful memory.  But because it… like me… had been completely renovated.

Where there once was dark, there was now light.  What was once sad and worn down, was now alive and new!  The irony was not lost on me.

Because just like the house… I had been “made over” too.  Windows fogged with grief and pain had been wiped clean.  Shutters that felt the need to “protect” had been thrown open to receive and give love again.  And the old door to the past had been replaced with a new one to the future.

It was no coincidence that as I became newer and lighter, the house… that house did too.

Now, instead of a painful memory of the past, it stands as a testament to how far we both have come.  And a promise of a brighter future ahead.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.  -Ecclesiastes 3:11

What about you?  Is God healing your heart and renovating your soul?  If you can’t see the finished product yet, don’t give up.  One day, you will suddenly realize the dark has turned to light.  Stay strong.