Hammer and Nails

It takes hammer and nails to build a life we love. This has been true for me and my family. It’s also taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but mostly lots of LOVE.

We often think life, love and self-care should come naturally. This is a myth–or at a minimum it’s a paradox. As Gretchen Rubin points out, truths can be funny. Sometimes what seems to be the opposite of one truth can be equally true. So it may be true that “All we need is love,” but it’s also equally true that we need to build our lives and our families and our homes with “Hammer and nails.” This is where I choose to focus for today’s blog post.

I am using a family photo for today’s post. It’s a new picture taken just in time for the holidays. You might look at it and see a happy family, which is true. Because of our photographer’s skill and our children’s cooperation during the photo shoot, you might also be tempted to “make up a story” (as Brene Brown discusses in her book Rising Strong) about our family being all smiles and unicorns all the time. Our minds like to make up stories and fill in the blanks about ourselves and other people when we don’t know the whole story.

I’m here to tell you that my family and I have our good days and our bad days, even our good and bad moments. When I look at our family photo I see the smiles, but I also see the blood, sweat, tears and LOVE that it has taken for us to become and remain a happy family. Radney Foster’s song “Hammer and Nails” vividly captures the tools and skills it takes to build a house, a home and a family (see lyrics below).

But here’s the thing: I live in the construction zone of our home and family day in and day out. I know it takes a lot of hard work. Sometimes I spend days staring at a pile of laundry or dishes in the sink or (in our case) crates of eggs waiting to be sorted, washed and distributed. I know the TRUE story of what it takes to make our family work. But sometimes I need to step back and look at the big picture of what we have built. So when I look at our happy family photo, I see the smiles and hugs. I also see the blood, sweat, tears and LOVE that have gone into building our family.

So here’s the take away: Live in the truth of the day to day, AND take time to look at the big picture. Work hard using hammer and nails to build your life and your family AND step back and savor in your accomplishments, how far you have come and what you have built.

When you look back on 2015, what are the top three things for which you have gratitude?  Take a moment to really savor the joys and the challenges of the past year and look forward to 2016 with hope.

Radney Foster – Hammer And Nails Lyrics

Better build your house on a rock

Or watch it crumble and fail

Better build your love, hammer and nail.

I see it in the darkness as if it was broad daylight

I feel it down inside my soul when I hold you tight

It takes much more than passion for love to prevail

Gotta raise it up with hammer and nails.

Hammer and nail, we’re gonna build this love

Faith and hope, flesh and blood

Lay that firm foundation down to the last detail

Gonna build our love with hammer and nails.

You build one room for laughter, you build one room for tears

This ain’t no game, no house of cards, it’s gonna take us years

A vow that’s only spoken comes to no avail

Put ’em in your hands, hammer and nails.

Hammer and nail, we’re gonna build this love

Faith and hope, flesh and blood

Lay it out so straight and true to the last detail

Gonna build our love with hammer and nails.

Hammer and nail, we’re gonna build this love

Faith and hope, flesh and blood

We’ve both seen it strong enough, we’ve both seen it fail

Gonna build our love with hammer and nails

Gonna build our love with hammer and nails.

http://radneyfoster.com/