“Finally, we get to start seeing some construction” is what a lot of homeowners think after the seemingly long process of caring for the soil and pouring and curing the foundation. Almost overnight a construction site goes from nothing but a slab to a house taking shape as the framing begins. Stud walls are raised, structural beams are placed, roof rafters are rolled into place, and before we know it, we can begin to see what this house is going to look like. In our marriages, this is when we begin to plan what we want our family to look like – will we have children or not? If we want children but are unable to, will we adopt? How many children will we have, how many children will we adopt? – are all questions raised as the construction begins. If children are a part of our planning, discussions of parenting and how we want to raise our children begin. Every home is unique to the ones building it, but every home has the same basic planning process of Design Drawings, Construction Documents and Engineered Drawings, all necessary to build the structure. In the same way, every family is unique, but we all have a similar process that we go through to create them – planning.
Designing a home was my favorite part of the process. I would meet with the future homeowners and discuss all their dreams and desires of what they wanted their home to look like. I would find out how they lived their lives and the things they enjoyed doing so that their home would reflect their lifestyle. More often than not, it was the wife that had the biggest dreams, and the husband was the one concerned over the budget with only minor input into the design (not that he didn’t care about the design, the husband simply deferred to his wife for those things). I would usually provide the clients with several design concepts in drawing form, and we would begin a process of negotiation as to what the final outcome would be. I learned early on that this negotiation process was important because often the owners would struggle to visualize the finished home even though I thought my plans were well done. I may have had some strong ideas about the design, but at the end of the day, I was not the one living in the home, the clients were.
The process of designing our families is one that typically begins prior to our even getting married. As we grow in our dating relationships and discover that we may be headed in the direction of marriage, we begin to explore the topic of family and what each other views that family as looking like. While men and women may differ in how they dream about such things, we all have our ideals of what we want our family to look like and we begin to convey that to one another, much like my design drawings being conveyed to the homeowners. Often our dreams may differ to some degree, and we begin to negotiate the design of our family. How we view parenting may also become a part of this process but is an often-overlooked part of our discussion because, well let’s face it, we’ve never parented before! Our views of parenting may only be what we encountered as our parents raised us, or maybe we observed how a friend’s parents raised them, or maybe the only perspective we have on parenting is from a TV show. For too many of us, we never consider this topic until we find out that we are going to be parents ourselves – then we panic!
Once the final design was reached and approved by the client, we were then able to move into the phase of creating the construction documents and having an engineer prepare his drawings – both critical to the proper framing of the home. The contractor in charge of building the home would use the drawings to properly place all the framing elements, assuring that it would remain strong and withstand whatever the engineer designed it to withstand – earthquakes, hurricanes, high winds, snow, etc. As important as I may have wanted to believe that my design drawings were, the drawings used by the contractor were far more important. Marriage is the beginning of the framing process.
In the world of home building, the homeowners hire a contractor to build their home, trusting that he will build it according to the plans and follow the instructions of the engineer. In marriage, we are the contractors. The plans – design and construction drawings – are our own dreams and desires for our family, but what about the engineered drawings? When it came to our foundation, we identified several engineers that influence it, but a structural engineer is very different from a soils engineer. Where do we find one? Often, couples will seek out a pre-marriage counselor, whether through a church or a counseling organization that specializes in that type of counseling. For some, they may choose to read books on how to prepare for marriage or do an online course. Others may choose to build without any engineer involved at all. Everyone must decide for themselves who, if anyone, will engineer their home. For me, I have to go back to the parable that started this construction journey. The strongest home we can build is one that is engineered by Jesus Christ, and the blueprints for that home are found prior to the parable beginning in Matthew 5:1, the Sermon on the Mount.
Even with the best engineered drawings, the conditions in the field during construction may necessitate some changes, and changes can be hard to navigate at times. If you find yourself in the middle of construction and in need of some changes to your plans, or if you are in the design phase of your home-building project and want some assistance in designing and engineering the best home possible, we have a team of counselors here at Arizona Family Counseling that would love to help. Our website is www.arizonafamilycounseling.com or you can reach us by phone at (877) 847-6104. Our greatest desire is to serve God by serving you, and in serving you as you engage in your construction project, we can meet our mission of strengthening families in the name of Jesus Christ.
“Finally, we get to start seeing some construction” is what a lot of homeowners think after the seemingly long process of caring for the soil and pouring and curing the foundation. Almost overnight a construction site goes from nothing but a slab to a house taking shape as the framing begins. Stud walls are raised, structural beams are placed, roof rafters are rolled into place, and before we know it, we can begin to see what this house is going to look like. In our marriages, this is when we begin to plan what we want our family to look like – will we have children or not? If we want children but are unable to, will we adopt? How many children will we have, how many children will we adopt? – are all questions raised as the construction begins. If children are a part of our planning, discussions of parenting and how we want to raise our children begin. Every home is unique to the ones building it, but every home has the same basic planning process of Design Drawings, Construction Documents and Engineered Drawings, all necessary to build the structure. In the same way, every family is unique, but we all have a similar process that we go through to create them – planning.
Designing a home was my favorite part of the process. I would meet with the future homeowners and discuss all their dreams and desires of what they wanted their home to look like. I would find out how they lived their lives and the things they enjoyed doing so that their home would reflect their lifestyle. More often than not, it was the wife that had the biggest dreams, and the husband was the one concerned over the budget with only minor input into the design (not that he didn’t care about the design, the husband simply deferred to his wife for those things). I would usually provide the clients with several design concepts in drawing form, and we would begin a process of negotiation as to what the final outcome would be. I learned early on that this negotiation process was important because often the owners would struggle to visualize the finished home even though I thought my plans were well done. I may have had some strong ideas about the design, but at the end of the day, I was not the one living in the home, the clients were.
The process of designing our families is one that typically begins prior to our even getting married. As we grow in our dating relationships and discover that we may be headed in the direction of marriage, we begin to explore the topic of family and what each other views that family as looking like. While men and women may differ in how they dream about such things, we all have our ideals of what we want our family to look like and we begin to convey that to one another, much like my design drawings being conveyed to the homeowners. Often our dreams may differ to some degree, and we begin to negotiate the design of our family. How we view parenting may also become a part of this process but is an often-overlooked part of our discussion because, well let’s face it, we’ve never parented before! Our views of parenting may only be what we encountered as our parents raised us, or maybe we observed how a friend’s parents raised them, or maybe the only perspective we have on parenting is from a TV show. For too many of us, we never consider this topic until we find out that we are going to be parents ourselves – then we panic!
Once the final design was reached and approved by the client, we were then able to move into the phase of creating the construction documents and having an engineer prepare his drawings – both critical to the proper framing of the home. The contractor in charge of building the home would use the drawings to properly place all the framing elements, assuring that it would remain strong and withstand whatever the engineer designed it to withstand – earthquakes, hurricanes, high winds, snow, etc. As important as I may have wanted to believe that my design drawings were, the drawings used by the contractor were far more important. Marriage is the beginning of the framing process.
In the world of home building, the homeowners hire a contractor to build their home, trusting that he will build it according to the plans and follow the instructions of the engineer. In marriage, we are the contractors. The plans – design and construction drawings – are our own dreams and desires for our family, but what about the engineered drawings? When it came to our foundation, we identified several engineers that influence it, but a structural engineer is very different from a soils engineer. Where do we find one? Often, couples will seek out a pre-marriage counselor, whether through a church or a counseling organization that specializes in that type of counseling. For some, they may choose to read books on how to prepare for marriage or do an online course. Others may choose to build without any engineer involved at all. Everyone must decide for themselves who, if anyone, will engineer their home. For me, I have to go back to the parable that started this construction journey. The strongest home we can build is one that is engineered by Jesus Christ, and the blueprints for that home are found prior to the parable beginning in Matthew 5:1, the Sermon on the Mount.
Even with the best engineered drawings, the conditions in the field during construction may necessitate some changes, and changes can be hard to navigate at times. If you find yourself in the middle of construction and in need of some changes to your plans, or if you are in the design phase of your home-building project and want some assistance in designing and engineering the best home possible, we have a team of counselors here at Arizona Family Counseling that would love to help. Our website is www.arizonafamilycounseling.com or you can reach us by phone at (877) 847-6104. Our greatest desire is to serve God by serving you, and in serving you as you engage in your construction project, we can meet our mission of strengthening families in the name of Jesus Christ.
EN 
ES