A House is Just a House...

 

Love makes it a home.

Each day this week the temperature is forecast to swing back and forth in the 40s and 60s! I think, I hope, I pray, we have turned a corner towards truly being Spring. I’m so ready. I can actually envision doing some of the work that I want to get done. Christina asked if we could have Jeremiah’s birthday party here at the house. I said yes, we’ll make it work. And we will. I am learning things, even deeper and more meaningful than ever before. It seems that each time I revisit these things in my mind, I grow a little in my understanding.

I’m not sure what triggered the thought recently, but it was powerful. I was thinking about how this is the only house our grand-littles know, this is where Sawyer came home to when he was born. This is Grammy and PaPa’s house. It has always been this way for them. Even our kids, this is where we have lived longest, and Rachel doesn’t remember any other home. She was 17 months old when we left Puerto Rico and 22 months old when we closed on this house and moved in. This is home. I have lived here almost as long as I lived in the only other house that comes close, which is the house I grew up in - my mom’s house.

So many celebrations and gatherings have filled this space with joy, that I cannot possibly count them.

This is the house that welcomed and served Sarah and Brad and three cats when their AC went out at their place in August and they needed a place to stay. It has been Josh’s place to land two times when he moved out and then needed to transition to the next places, he is here now, patiently waiting to work out details for the next place. In the meantime, this is his landing spot. It was home for Mandie when Dakota left for basic and tech school, and Sawyer was due in the days, literally, just before he was to leave. She and Sawyer needed a home and a support system after he was born.

It was the safe harbor for Travis when he got sober, experienced dramatic changes in his life and was starting over. It was the same for Chelsea when she transitioned from where she was to where she was going.

While we have lived within these four walls, a dead marriage was resurrected and a family rescued, other marriages were initiated and families founded. Friendships were made, broken, and reconciled. Broken hearts rested here while they mended, peace was restored when life wrought the most bizarre circumstances and made us all doubt our personal safety.

God waited patiently while we straddled the fence of really living out our faith and hope in him. God guards and protects the souls that enter and leave these four walls.

These walls have welcomed family and friends for weeks or months at a time, or just hours. It has been the place where God provided food, shelter, and welcome to many people at many different times. It’s just four walls to the eye, but to the heart it is so much more. It has served us so well. How can I complain about something that has been such a gift to us and to those we care about? How can I limit the possibilities for its future by declaring it unfit for these things?

My goal now has become, how can I take care of it properly so that it can continue to serve? It should never evolve to a situation that looks more like we are serving the house, rather the house serving us. God, help me see how we make this true.