Embracing New Purpose as Seasons Change

An old, splintered door with a torn screen and chipped paint once graced my front porch. A birch basket of pinecones sat on a red chair in front of the door and a “Welcome” sign hung from the top left corner.

The screen door that once slapped happily against the frame of a tired, old farmhouse was now repurposed into porch art. It received a few comments through the years, not all of them complimentary. One friend went so far as to offer to repair the screen. (It seems that some people don’t appreciate good art when they see it.)

My porch art was packed into my friends’ 10-ft cargo trailer and stored on their property while I rented a little guesthouse set high on a hill. And then it landed in Dan’s shop and I’m sure he was somewhat puzzled about why I dragged this old door around with me.

A year later when we overhauled our home, I envisioned it as a pantry door. Dan glued and clamped and made general repairs. I sanded and painted it a soft powdery blue, and then sanded again to scruff up the edges a bit. The torn screen was replaced with a dark mesh, and it now graces our kitchen as guardian of the pantry with a spring wreath hanging front and center.

A splintery door, once headed for the junkyard, was repurposed with new beauty, new usefulness, new worth.

Repurpose is the idea that when something or someone is no longer able to perform their original function due to circumstances beyond their control, instead of being abandoned or tossed, a new role can emerge that is just as important and influencing and life-giving as the previous one.

When we’re asked to leave a job or ministry we love, when we don’t pass the entrance exam, when our child dies, when we’re denied the scholarship, when our groom doesn’t show up for the wedding, do we assume everything we’ve ever hoped for and worked toward is lost? Should we assume all that? We do sometimes. We shouldn’t at all.

In the moment when my first husband slipped from this broken planet, I assumed all my goals and dreams had died right along with him. But what I hadn’t considered is that God is a God of repurpose.

Someone once wrote, “The joy of junking comes not only from a great find, but also from that moment when you figure out how to breathe new life into an old piece.”

God is in the business of redeeming our stories. He delights in breathing new life into our broken places. When we lose meaning because of divorce, poor health, or not being able to carry a child full term, the Master Artist loves to scoop up our shattered fragments and arrange them into a beautiful mosaic.

I couldn’t have foreseen the masterpiece God fashioned from my thousand broken pieces scattered across the floor—a new husband, a lovely home, more family and friends to care for, and new purpose that I love just as much as the old purpose I didn’t want to lose.

Bo Stern is an acquaintance from my hometown. She was widowed around the same time I was. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) took her husband. She is amazing, and beautiful, and an exceptional writer and speaker and has since married a wonderful man. Bo and her new husband figured out how to blend their families and obligations and work and ministries. “I am convinced that our purpose is the truest thing about us,” Bo wrote. “It’s truer than our height and weight. Truer than our successes and failures. Truer than our misgivings about our own abilities. You, my beautiful friend, are a purpose wrapped in a person.”

You are a person. And you are purpose, wrapped in your flesh and bones and skin. Significant things don’t happen from our comfortable overstuffed chairs. As we step out in God’s courage while wearing the flesh and bones we’ve been given, we are transformed into his purpose wrapped in the life he’s given us.

In my wildest imagination during that season of profound loss, I couldn’t have pictured how the weeks and months and years would unfold to this place, to Dan. I am loved and cherished by a man who challenges me to keep up with him, who makes me laugh, who loves being outdoors as much as I do, who is adventurous and wise and kind, who loves his family and mine. We have a warm and inviting home that overflows with people in a beautiful nature-filled area of Oregon at the foot of a massive mountain range. And our health and energy allow us to actively play in this forested playground.

Everything I thought was lost to me has been restored, redesigned, rebuilt. New purpose. New home. New love.

Embracing new purpose as seasons change can be scary. And risky. And overwhelming. But there’s something even scarier: Not being willing to change. Not living the life God intended for us as we turn the page to the next chapter.

I love the wisdom that shines through in these words from Bob Goff:

“God asks what it is he’s made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world he made. And then, leaning over us, he whispers, ‘Let’s go do that together.’”

Even if a life we once loved is no longer available to us, God still leans over us and whispers, “Welcome to the remaining days of your life on earth. Let’s go do that new thing together.”