The Magnolia Story

by Chip Gaines

Have you ever looked at the bud of a magnolia flower? It’s a tight little pod that stays closed up for a long time on the end of its branch until one day, out of nowhere, it finally bursts open into this gigantic, gorgeous, fragrant flower that’s ten times bigger than the bud itself. It’s impossible to imagine that such a big beautiful thing could pop out of that tiny little bud. But it does.

How many of us take the time to relive half a lifetime’s worth of happy memories, cringeworthy failures, and unforgettable adventures together? How many of us get a chance to sit down and talk about the rough times we overcame in the past or to laugh about the stupid mistakes we made when we were young?

love the space and season you’re in too.

because sometimes second chances lead to great things.

The fact that we were opposites on the surface didn’t negate the fact that we were both raised by loving parents, in loving families, and that we both love our families dearly. Our roots were important to both of us, and that one common bond, to me, plays a big role in what has kept us together.

God seemed to always be out on that limb with him, taking care of him.

I would go home every night and write about my experiences—what I’d seen, what I’d done, and sometimes just about whatever I was thinking or feeling. And as I did that, something shifted in me. I started owning who I am, realizing that I was unique and that God had a unique purpose for me. I’d spent my whole life worrying about what people thought about me or whether I was good enough or thinking about what I should be doing instead of really digging down to find out what I wanted to do.

I’m good at following the rules—most of the time.

I came to think of God as more of a gracious friend who was accompanying me on this journey, a friend who wanted to carry my burdens and speak into my life and shape me into who I really was and who I would become.

if I wanted to do important work one day, I would have to increase my capacity. I had to learn to manage disappointment.

Sometimes when something is meant to be, it’s meant to be.

I’d listened to my own intuition and let God guide me toward the plans he’d had for me all along.

But guess what? It all seemed to be working out in that perfectly messy way life works when you trust in God and his plans for your life rather than focusing on your own.

I wonder sometimes if we know ourselves a lot better than we think we do when we’re children. We get into our teen years and college years, and so many of us let others redefine who we are, or we get lost along the way and have no idea what we really want to do with our lives. But once we finally figure it out, it often seems easy to look back into our childhoods and find a few clues that say, “Hey, maybe you were headed in that direction all along.”

if you trust me with your dreams, I’ll take them further than you could have ever imagined.

It is no easy thing to trust in God, to walk away from a career, to give it all up not knowing if you can ever get it back or even come close. But I did it. I heeded his voice, and somehow I found peace about it.

Even locked doors can be unlocked in time. I simply never could have imagined just how much God had in store for us, and I certainly couldn’t have dreamed just how many keys to other doors God had already placed in our hands.

even as a kid, I didn’t qualify people like most folks do. I treated everybody the same. From a young age I understood the true meaning of the golden rule. I literally treated others as I wanted to be treated.

My only problem, if you want to call it a problem, is that I just never fit society’s mold, especially at school. I was always talking at inappropriate times. I was always getting in trouble with teachers who said I didn’t do things right. I wasn’t writing right. I wasn’t staying inside the lines. There was always some structure that I just somehow couldn’t fit my little brain into. (That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me either.)

I told myself that I was going to live the rest of my life as if it were Saturday.

Whenever I’ve been down financially, I’ve just picked myself up and worked a little harder. And whether it’s a little luck or God or a combination, everything seems to find a way of working itself out eventually.

I didn’t like being put in a certain box, and I didn’t appreciate people doing that to my friends either.

Sometimes worrying about something is much worse than the actual thing you’re worrying about. So really, what’s the point in worrying?

And if we’d given up, if we’d walked away, if we’d crumbled when we were at our lowest, we never would have made it around the corner to see all of the blessings that were about to come due.

I realized that my determination to make things perfect meant I was chasing an empty obsession all day long. Nothing was ever going to be perfect the way I had envisioned it in the past. Did I want to keep spending my energy on that effort, or did I want to step out of that obsession and to enjoy my kids, maybe allowing myself to get messy right along with them in the process?

yelling is always the lesser of two options. The better option is to use that moment to teach them, “Well, you know what? I did that when I was a kid too. We all make mistakes.” Followed by, “How about you help me clean this up?”

realized that it was up to me to flip that switch from surviving to thriving. It was just a mental shift, a readjustment in my way of thinking—like

If I’m going to sit around and say I am “just surviving” every day, well, guess what? When a big wave comes along suddenly, I won’t be surviving—I’ll be drowning! I mean, that’s life. Life is never predictable. Life is never really manageable. If your mind-set is always, “I’m just surviving,” it seems to me that would wind up being your mind-set for the rest of your life. You’d just get stuck in it. So I finally flipped the switch in my mind. I said, “I have to choose to thrive, even in the pain. Even when it’s tough.”

God has not brought us this far to let us down now.”

“I’m not going to survive anymore. I’m going to thrive.”

It wasn’t some big life-altering change that was difficult to achieve, either. It was instantaneous. I just realized that I had a choice to make in every moment, on every day, with every decision.

We were always thrifty, and we loved using old materials, making our own things, doing the work ourselves when we could.

I also love the fact that we had never quit.

We’d spent all this time doing the best we could every day, and for people to notice it was just very rewarding.

but instead they chose to be gracious and patient as we worked this out.

Most things in life are just beyond our planning and our control.

We truly believe that God put those plans in action because he knew what we would need as a family, even though we didn’t have any clue what we needed ourselves.

We love our kids, we love each other, we love this town, and we love our clients. That’s the heart behind our show. We’re a real couple and a real company, and we do real jobs for people with real budgets.

If it wasn’t for him making me laugh, though, I might just work myself to death.

Our home became more important than it had ever been. As we said a little earlier, I think God knew that place was exactly what our family needed in this new season.

Our marriage never suffered in all we’ve gone through because Chip and I were drawn even closer together, knowing down deep in our hearts that we had to hold on to each other if we were ever going to make it out alive.

I always thought that the “thriving” would come when everything was perfect, and what I learned is that it’s actually down in the mess that things get good.

It was such a blessing to find myself thriving in the middle of the pain. Unless you find a way to do that, there’s always going to be this fake illusion that once you get there—wherever “there” is for you—you’ll be happy. But that’s just not life. If you can’t find happiness in the ugliness, you’re not going to find it in the beauty, either.

I worked hard to try to do it all, to try to live up to the Pinterest perfection that only leaves you discontented. I finally realized that life isn’t found on the pages of a magazine—life is found in the glass of spilled milk and in the long, narrow hallway filled with socks and soccer balls.

Kids just want to be kids.

Letting it all go is freeing. (And it’s cheaper too!) I am learning that getting our intentions right simplifies our decisions in life and changes our perspective. And in the end, what it’s all about is thankfulness and contentment.

It was full of life. Full of her life. She didn’t choose quiet, peaceful, alone time in her final days. She wanted to be in the middle of it all.

She chose to find the joy in the midst of suffering.

it’s up to us to choose contentment and thankfulness now—and to stop imagining that we have to have everything perfect before we’ll be happy.

And I hope our example is a good one.