The Yellow Door Life

I never planned to get divorced.

I never planned to be at risk for heart failure.  

I never planned to walk away from my marketing job. 

I never planned to have my whole life turned upside down in my thirties. 

But it happened.

I was so busy trying to avoid these things that I drove smack into the middle of them all, at full speed. 

Many people would consider these things failures. I see them as building blocks. 

These so-called failures actually saved my life.

That marriage was suffocating me. 

Those health issues I now manage forced me to move out of a state that wasn’t right for me. 

That marketing job asked me to sacrifice who I was for a paycheck. 

All the twists and turns in my thirties? Well those unexpected surprises have shown me that it is possible that God has more planned for me than I had for myself.

Failure is just the foundation.

I’ve never related more to this quote than I have in the last few years, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” – J.K. Rowling.

I thought a divorce, a diagnosis, being unemployed, or starting over at 31 were failures, but these building blocks helped lay out the foundation for the rest of my life. 

My life didn’t end at 31, it started, and in the most beautiful way. 

I got to choose me.

I got to decide where I was going to live and how I was going to take care of myself mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. 

I got to take crappy circumstances and try to turn them into a remarkable life. 

Failures are where we learn what needs to be tweaked, so we can move forward and reach the successes. 

Now that I have this foundation, I get to start building the life that God intended for me. I get to start figuring out all the pieces of the puzzle that are still missing. As long as that foundation remains, I can start constructing walls, and windows, and kitchens with giant islands. 

See, the failures were never setbacks, they were the opportunity to start fresh. One of my favorite shows is Fixer Upper and every time I hear Chip say, “Demo Day!” I laugh. The funny thing is though, every time something falls apart in my life now, I’ve started saying the same thing. 

Some things in our life have to be destroyed, so we can rebuild and remodel the parts that no longer serve us. 

Just think of your failures as pink carpet, popcorn ceilings, parquet flooring, and green bathroom tile. Once you remove them, you can learn from your mistakes, and set the stage for something gorgeous to be built.