Quotes I have Put Together Using Real Leaves, Bamboo, and Flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Foundation of Life

It was the summer of 2010 and my husband was super excited for us to buy our first home. We currently were living in 400 square feet of space and it felt more like a storage unit rather than a home. Our budget for finding a home was around $100,000, but for most home owners, we also were looking for a few other specific things and with a budget so low, I wasn’t real sure how possible our “must haves” would be. We wanted a large garage, a descent sized yard, and a good neighborhood. We didn’t want to live on a busy street. I wanted the ability to have a space in our home for a day care and we didn’t want our home to have structural problems that would lead to a lot of headaches. 

As my husband was working closely with our realtor, and I amazingly had some time off from work, we ventured into Bountiful, Utah to look at a few homes on the market in our price range. One of the homes on our list looked to be way too nice for the listed price, but we thought, what the heck, lets go see it. We arrived about 20 minutes before our realtor was set to arrive, so we decided to check out the property on the outside and check out the surrounding neighborhood. To our horror, many of the homes in the neighborhood had serious problems from what we could see on the outside. One in particular looked like the extreme home version of the leaning tower of Piza. We found a sign that explained what was going on in that particular community. The community was suffering from a landslide that had developed much quicker than had been expected and the home we were going to look at was smack dab in the middle of the border of where this landslide had been marked to be occurring. Despite the news, we decided to check out the house since we were there. When we stepped inside the home, we found that the house was indeed being affected. The foundation was not solid, but shifting. The garage had a huge crack in the cement floor and many of the doors were very difficult to open and close. We were devastated. Devastated that we wouldn’t get a dream home for the price we wanted, but more than that, we were devastated for the community that was losing their homes to causes beyond their control. Many of the homes looked completely fine, but slowly, one by one, the beautiful homes on the outside, the stable walls, the leak proof roofs, and the newly painted homes, would all succumb to an unstable foundation. Everyone was dealing with the sickening truth that without a strong foundation, even the best built homes could not stand. It was heartbreaking. 

This got me to thinking. Well, I think a lot, but it got me thinking about one of the concepts I feel very passionate about. I, like all of us, have certain ideals that are very dear to my heart. They stem from many of life’s experiences. For me I have a great love for children who are challenged with Autism and I feel very strongly that early intervention with the behavior modification program called Applied Behavior Analysis is key to helping that child overcome the struggles Autism brings and allows the child to become more than they or their parents could ever dream of becoming. Perhaps you feel very passionate about ending abuse, helping the poor, protecting the environment, recycling, protecting the life of an unborn child, finding a cure for cancer, and the list could go on and on. With these issues you feel strongly about, there is almost always a very emotional string attached to why you feel the way that you do and having someone come in and stomp on what you feel passionate about is something that you truly cannot understand because it doesn’t make sense to you in any way. I, like you, don’t want that either.

For each of us to go after the dreams we have, we may forget that there is a very important element that allows this step to be made. What is this element? The element that broke the well built walls and roofs of the homes in Bountiful was the foundation with which they were built upon. Nothing that was built mattered when the foundation with which it was built upon was unstable and cracking. It didn’t matter how well anything was built in this area. It didn’t matter how great the house looked or even how unfair it was to the homeowners who were losing their homes.  Without a strong foundation, their work was meaningless and crumbled. We, like these homes must realize this. We may have many many things that we are passionate about, but all of these dreams we have mean nothing if the foundation with which we build it is crumbling. If we want to protect our dreams and our ability to pursue them, we must realize that there is something much greater that we must protect before we can protect our dreams. What is this element? What is this foundation that allows us to build the life we dream of building? It is freedom!