Foundations.

Important? Oh, yeah. Let me tell you…!

I suspected it for years. I feared it almost as long. Finally, in 2016, the brutal truth: Our home had foundation problems.

Years earlier a neighbor’s fire got out of control and burned down our hill toward our house. Since then we lost well over 60 trees, mostly hardwoods but a lot of pine as well. Years—decades?—of ground cover was gone, and few trees left to replace it. And nothing to slow heavy rains from slamming down to the berm above our house, over it, and through the vents under our house.

Water damage. Eventually, minor changes to several foundation pillars. More than normal “settling” cracks in our walls.

We could have smiled, gone on, ignored the warnings, and let the damage continue. But we wanted to do some remodeling, and all that effort would have been wasted if tile cracked, if countertops separated, and wall cracks reappeared.

Thousands of dollars later, we now have French drains under the home. The foundation has been shored up and re-leveled.  Oh, guess what? Several necessary pillars hadn’t even been installed back in 1993.

But now we can remodel and we can rest better knowing the problems are solved and the home is secure.

In case you’re wondering, yes, we’ve taken care of the hill problem. Sometimes even the best foundation isn’t the whole answer. You have to take care of external threats as well.

Secret, but significant

We look on the outside of a building. The outward appearance of a company, or perhaps a family, or a marriage, or an individual.  Maybe even ourselves. All seems well.

Is it?  What lies underneath or inside?

Is there an adequate foundation that is able to handle the weight of what we’re trying to build? The moral foundation to support the person you want to become? An adequate organizational foundation to build your business upon?

Everything might look fine during peaceful times. What about when the storms come?  They will come.

How’s it looking for the United States of America right now? Will we return to the foundations that once made us truly unique, or will we go the way of countless other societies in the past?

My life?  Yours?

I know there’s room for improvement in my life. How about you?

Since we can’t tear everything down and start all over, how do we strengthen what we already have?

Let’s talk.

I’ll share my thoughts. Please share your thoughts back by responding to this email (FB post readers can email me at Bill@BillBest.net).

Perhaps…just perhaps, I’ll collect, edit, and put these into a future book.  Maybe you can help ME to help OTHERS. So let me hear from you. Like this insightful  comment from one reviewer:

“I would say often times in my own life I don’t check my foundation until a catastrophe comes along. It’s shameful and something I need to work on and allow God to work through me. What I’m getting at is preventative maintenance!”

INDEED!