Breathing Life into Desert Places

Tarah OSullivan
Apr 9
3 min read

I was seven months pregnant with Drake,

our fourth little in six years.

Although our plates were full, Eric and I felt the Lord calling us to step forward to start a business we had longed to try.

I have always loved building things.

Growing up with a dad that was an electrician, mom as a full time renovator, uncle as a roofer, another uncle as a builder....

I think it was just in our blood.

Eric never critized me for “not being girly" when I loved looking at power tools at the local hardware store. Every year, for our anniversary, I would ask for a different saw or drill.

Once, I even permanently shortened one of my fingernail beds when I caught my hand in a table saw for some mission's decor a few years back...

Luckily, it was nothing serious but a goofy looking nail bed and a trip to the ER.

But what do you name a dream?

How do you give it legs?

We didn't want to overthink it...Just put it on paper...and hit submit before we chickened out.

E & T Construction and Design, LLC...established August 2016

Creating a home for others has always been a dream of ours.

Almost a decade we had prayed for the opportunity.

We filed the paperwork, stuck our toe in the water...

The excitement of what was to come was so palatable...

Two short months later...

came the darkness.

The unshakeable darkness that claimed everything it touched.

Our precious son...the diagnosis...”terminal living" came hard and fast.

We immediately went into survival mode..

Nothing else mattered.

And then the unthinkable...

Our precious Vivian...our second terminal diagnosis.

Survive.

Live until tomorrow...

Survive today...

Dreams are not reality...

Living and Dying..that is realty.

Die to self.

Keep running...

Save your babies...

Keep fighting.

But God.

7 years...

7 years later God blew the dust off a dream.

A dream that almost felt silly to even think about again. Father knew it was more than a silly dream to Eric and I. It was Him speaking life into desert places again.

Lord, how do we live again? How do we live daily watching our babies dying?

Father: Do you trust me with your babies?

Yes, Father, I am laying them at your feet continually.

Father: Do you trust me with you?

Yes, Lord. But I am fine...just take care of our children...Eric and I are fine.

Father: I have your babies' healing in my perfect timing. Let me remind you of my grace, my love of even the most tucked away prayers.

It doesn't feel right, Lord...to start to live again while they are still not healed. Please tell me when they will heal.

Father: Soon. Now, lay it at my feet, held too tightly it can become an idol.

Yes, Lord. I do not want that. I trust you Father, forgive me. Help me to keep my hands open. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for loving me more than I deserve.

Father knows...

He loves us so much more than just "surviving"..

E and T Construction and Design, LLC - "The Birkley"

We are calling this plan...

"The Birkley"

She is named after our first born and the first of a set of five, one modeled after each little (good Lord willing) .

She is much more than just a house...

She is a promise kept...a decade long prayer answered...a testimony that Father cares about even the abandoned dreams...and He answers abundantly...in His timing.

She was everything a first born is...

All the nervous excitement of becoming first time parents,

Terrified we would mess up, but at the same time knowing we were born for this moment.

Trusting God to part the sea...

And when she was finally here, in all her splendor...

you think...

she is nothing like me...

she is absolutely perfect.

And I am so humbled I had a small part in creating her.

Follow along to learn about how God had a tree cut down 7 years ago for us to use in this home.