Today I Will Build My House

May 10

How Are You Really Doing, Mom?

If we were sitting across from each other at a coffee shop this Mother's Day, I wouldn't ask, "How are you?" I'd ask, "How are you really doing?"

Not the polite answer. Not the one we give while we're refilling sippy cups and answering texts. The honest one. Today, how is your heart?

That question matters because so many of us are walking around looking like a million bucks on the outside while quietly feeling like a foreclosure on the inside. And on Mother's Day — a day that can carry as much grief and exhaustion as it does joy — it's worth pausing long enough to ask: What am I actually building with my life?

The House That Looked Beautiful (But Was Making Us Sick)

When I was about twelve, my parents bought a brand-new home in a beautiful subdivision. White columns in the entryway. A three-car garage. A floor-to-ceiling fireplace. From the curb, it was stunning.

But within a few months of moving in, my mom and sister — who both have asthma — couldn't stop coughing. Their lungs began to close up at night. Then one spring, the basement flooded during a storm and the water had nowhere to go.

The house had a bad foundation. Every time it rained, black mold grew behind the walls — invisible, but actively making my family sick. The seller eventually bought the home back, but only after my mom and sister had suffered for months from something they couldn't see.

That house is a picture of how a lot of us live. Outfit on point. Hair done. Nails freshly painted. Schedule packed with good things. But behind the walls? Worry, hurry, anxious thoughts, leaking joy, a soul running ten paces behind the body. Our kids start absorbing our anxiety. We snap at the people we love most. The cracks start to show.

You may not need a new schedule. You may need a few honest minutes to ask: What am I building, and what am I building it with?

What 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 Says About How We Build Our Lives

Here's the passage Paul writes to a struggling church in Corinth:

"According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw — each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done." — 1 Corinthians 3:10-15

Corinth was the Las Vegas of its day — a city marked by sexual immorality, religious confusion, and corruption. Paul planted a church there, and that church was floundering under the weight of its culture. Sound familiar?

Paul's word to them — and to us — is direct: the foundation is Jesus, and only Jesus. But what you build on top of that foundation is up to you. And one day, fire will test it.

Notice the word anyone. Paul isn't only talking to pastors and teachers. He's talking to every follower of Jesus. Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, single women, women who long to be mothers, women whose babies are in heaven. Each of us is building something. And each of us will be held accountable for how we built.

Material Matters: What Are You Building Your Life With?

Every builder knows that material matters. Cheap material affects the longevity of the house. And if we're honest, most of us cut corners every day — not on the external stuff, but on the internal, eternal stuff.

We grip our calendars tightly and hold our soul loosely. We strive to give our kids a curated childhood, keep a healthy marriage, cook three nutritious meals (okay, two and a side of dino-shaped chicken nuggets), and we get to the end of the week wondering, what just happened?

That kind of striving often leaves us building with wood, hay, and straw — the materials that are easy, fast, temporary, and don't ask much of us.

A Bible app verse-of-the-day notification you scroll past on the way to Instagram. Straw.
Calling it discipleship when our kids only hear about Jesus on Sunday. Wood.
Worship that means singing along in the car and then yelling at our kids the second we park. Hay.

So ask yourself honestly:

Am I giving my family intentional time, or scrolling while they watch TV?
Am I speaking kind words, or harsh words because I'm overstimulated?
Am I leaving margin for the people in my home, or running on empty?

No one wants their family to say at their 80th birthday, "My mom was always anxious, always on her phone, never really present." We want them to say, "My mom was patient. Loving. Generous. She loved Jesus more than anything." But that kind of legacy isn't built in a moment of inspiration. It's built — or eroded — by a thousand small decisions about what material we use.

Psalm 127:1-2 (MSG) says it beautifully:

"If God doesn't build the house, the builders only build shacks. If God doesn't guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap. It's useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don't you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?"

If God isn't the one building your house, you're building a shack. You're tired because you're relying on yourself instead of Jesus.

What Are the Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones?

If wood, hay, and straw are the easy and temporary materials, what are the gold, silver, and precious stones we want to build with?

Elisabeth Elliot — a hero of the faith and one of the women whose example I keep returning to — said it like this: "Our faithfulness in our daily work is what's precious. Our offering to God."

That changes everything. Because if she's right, then changing diapers, mopping the kitchen floor, replying to emails at work, and sitting with a friend in her grief all carry the same weight in eternity. What we are faithful to every day is what is precious in the eyes of God.

Luke 16:10 echoes it: "One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much."

The precious material isn't another title, another opportunity, another platform, or another finished project. It's stewarding what God has already placed in your hands.

To the moms, the grandmothers, the mothers of babies in heaven, and the women who longed for children but couldn't have them: your assignment is the home in front of you, the people around you, and a life built with the grace and truth of Jesus.

The Testing Fire Matters Too

Paul says our work will be revealed by fire. The fire will test what sort of material we used.

1 Peter 1:6-7 puts it this way: "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

Some of those tests are huge. Most of them are daily. The meltdowns. The fights you have to break up. The decisions about whether to respond in patience or in frustration. God uses every-day fires to build us.

A Personal Testimony: Postpartum Depression and Trusting Jesus in the Dark

Every January, I pick a word for the year. In January 2025, eight months pregnant with my second baby, I asked God what He wanted me to grow in. The answer came clearly: trust.

I gave birth to my son Caius the next month. I trusted God through the deepest physical pain I'd ever experienced. I settled into life with two under two.

But something wasn't right. It wasn't physical. My brain felt cloudy. Sadness sat on my chest. I started waking up not wanting to wake up. I cried with my kids. I felt emotionally unstable, angry, distant. Then dark thoughts started showing up — your family would be better off without you. It would be better if you didn't wake up tomorrow.

It wasn't normal postpartum hormones. It was postpartum depression. And I never thought it would happen to me.

One dark night, the Holy Spirit whispered the same question Elisabeth Elliot once heard: "Blair, do you love me? Do you trust me?" I said yes — and then begged Him to heal me. The answer was, "Not yet, beloved."

I prayed more than I ever had. I told my husband, my mentor, my family. I kept showing up — to church, to small groups, even to help launch our new college ministry — all while walking through the darkest season of my life.

And with the perspective of time, I can say honestly: I wouldn't change a thing.

The depression was the fire God used to burn up the wood, hay, and straw I'd been building with. In the middle of it, I had to ask: if this darkness is my new normal forever, is God still worthy?

He is. He always has been.

"Today I will build my house with Jesus. Even if I don't feel it. Even if I can't see. I love Him. I trust Him."

God did heal me. But even if He hadn't, He would still be worthy. The suffering we walk through is the very tool God uses to purify the materials we're building with. The wayward child. The dark thoughts. The infertility. The singleness. The loneliness. The anxiety. He uses all of it to refine us like silver.

To Be Tested Is Not Punishment — It Is Grace

Psalm 66:10 says, "For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried."

To be tried by fire is not God being cruel. It is God giving you the chance to love Him more wholeheartedly, trust Him more truly, and let Him purify the material you're building with. That's why I now pray Psalm 51 with new conviction: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

If God leads me through another fire, I want to welcome it with humility — knowing I'll come out more wholly His than when I went in.

A Word to Three Kinds of Women Reading This

As you finish reading, you probably fall into one of three groups. There's grace for each one.

For the woman in the fire: If your faith is being tested in the flames right now — postpartum depression, a wayward child, a hard marriage, grief, anxiety, infertility — you are not alone. God wants to meet you in the heat. Will you let Him help you rebuild what feels like it's falling apart?

For the woman in a season of strength: If today you feel good and steady, take a hard look at your materials. The fire will come for all of us. Will what you've built remain standing? Are you building with the gold of daily faithfulness, or settling for the straw of comfort and convenience?

For the woman who hasn't been taking her foundation seriously: There is grace for a new start. The wood, hay, and straw of a busy, distracted life is not the legacy you were made for. Nothing in this world stands the test of time like a life built on Jesus Christ. If you've never made Him your foundation, what's holding you back? Our team at Christ's Family Church would love to meet with you and walk alongside you in that decision. It is the best decision you will ever make.