What Is Home?

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.

John 14: 1-4

I sit in the office, brain trying to wrap itself around what to write, and I allow a slow-moving, slow-rolling wave of past experiences wind its way through my mind's screen.  Images of childhood, first days of school, climbing trees, swimming.  Images of high school, images colored in instagram sepia because the memories seem to come from a place long ago and far away.

I sit in the office and look around at the misplaced, the off-the-walls, the stacked, signs of work that's going on in this house.  Work going on to make it ready to sell.  Sell it so that we can move.

Once again.  Where the army takes us.

We have a list of everything that needs to be done to the house.  For the house, because this work has been more of a labor of love and we have gotten to know this house intimately.  We want her to shine; we want her to feel attractive and generous, and fulfilled.  We want her to feel needed.

Did I say 'her'?

Yes, this house has become a member of the family.  And we've only been here a year.  Does that happen to you?  I walk her familiar rooms and run my hands along her walls and woodwork.  I know her scrapes and scratches.  I heal her wounds.

My husband speaks of her construction.  She has good bones.  He says.  She was well built.  He says.  I watch him sanding walls that have been bumped - sand and touch, sand and touch.  He talks to her as he works - cajoling, soothing, laughing.  He wants her at her best.  I watch him dress her up with crown - it is elegant and fitting.  I help him lay tile - rugged and wonderful, right next to the gloss of dark wood.  I am amazed at the transformation and I feel the house breathe solid and strong.  Contrast between rustic and sheen.  I watch my husband custom craft and fit so that the new blends perfectly with the old.  Nothing shouts I am here, look at me - the beauty is in the whole, not the parts.

I sit in the office and look around at the red ladder, and the stacked-and-ready-to-be-installed door handles, and the door frame that is only half-painted.  This too shall pass.  Soon, she will be at her company best - all dressed up - eager to please.  And we will sell her so that we can move.

Once again.  Where the army takes us.

My sister once asked me about our many moves.  She said it was overwhelming to her - to think about setting up a new house in a new place - on a regular basis.  She said it would be hard to make all those new places into a home.  And she was right.  A house is only a house (even if I do insist on calling it a 'her').  It is only a place.  A building.  Home is the living that goes on inside the house.

Home is family, and love, fighting and making up.  It is shared decisions and planning.  It is working together on the house in order to sell it.  It is my daughter who hears "Neighbor Day" instead of Labor Day and insists that we go talk to the neighbors.  It is thanksgiving.  It is sweet dreams and security.

A little over two thousand years ago, Jesus left a home he loved to light our way in the darkness, to redeem us, to show us the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He is preparing a new home for us - one that He bought to give to us.  And He bought it at a steep price.  It won't need to be spiffed up and polished; it is already perfect.

Our home will forever be with Him, wherever that takes us.

Linking with:  Three-Word Wednesday, #TellHisStory

#TellHisStory: Fences and Walls

No longer will violence be heard in your land,

nor ruin or destruction within your borders,

but you will call your walls Salvation

and your gates Praise.

Isaiah 60:18

I've been thinking about fences and walls.  Yes, those structures that define boundaries.  It started with buying this house that doesn't have a fence for our dog.  Our ever-so-curious-just-a-little-bit-naughty dog who likes to take himself for solo walks.  So far, he's listened, albeit reluctantly at times, when we call him back to come inside.  But we're afraid 'so far' will not last much longer.  And, he deserves some time to himself, outside.  Without his human family holding him back from enjoying dog things.

So, wall-type one - the fence we want - is the kind that allows my dog to see his boundaries without interference from us.  I don't think of this as a restriction, but rather a 'freedom enhancer'.  It isn't intended to keep anything out, just to keep our increasingly independent dog safe.  Kind of like a sheepfold.

But, as I think about fences, I think about others I've seen.  In Texas, we built wall-type two - designed to not only give our dogs space to run without supervision (see picture above...), but to keep outside eyes out.  It was a privacy fence.  We had fenced in a kind of personal retreat - no traffic movement, no passing pedestrians, tall enough to block the view in from the road, but not so tall that it hid the trees and woods that were not part of our property.  Kind of like the walls of Jericho.

Then there's wall-type three.  The very real kind we build inside ourselves.  Not always visible, not always acknowledged - but there.  This is the kind of wall that defines our personal boundaries - the kind of fence that we build around the tender shoots of our emotions, around our carefully cultivated beliefs - insulating and protecting us from the rages and unpredictability of the world around us.  Holding us in while pushing the world out.  This fence compartmentalizes.  It separates.  It protects.  It blinds.  All of these.  

And sometimes these fences break down, and need repair.  And sometimes these walls just need to be moved, in or out to redefine the boundaries of our thinking.  And sometimes, sometimes they just need to be removed.  Taken away because they are no longer necessary.  No longer necessary to mark property.  No longer necessary to keep in.  And no longer necessary to push away.

I imagine heaven as a place with no need of fences or walls.  Isn't that an image to keep...

Heavenly Father, thank you for your promise of salvation.  Thank you for this glimpse of Your Kingdom in heaven.  I know, that for now I need fences.  But I look forward to the day when none of us do.  Thank you for that vision.

Linking with TellHisStory

A Bus Ticket To Heaven

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:2

I wish I could buy a bus ticket to heaven

Pack some bags and

Just hang a sign on my window

Gone on Vacation

Or something

I wish I had a magic wand

That could change

The world

No more sad news, no more bad news

Just peace 

I wish I could think the devil away

Snap my fingers.

Poof!  Gone!

In a heartbeat - an instant  

No more.

I wish life was easy

No stress, no worries, no lies

No sickness, no jealousy

No ignorance, no pride

I wish life was fair

I wish I could ask 

God some questions

About mosquitoes

And ticks

And love.

I wish I could meet Jesus

At a party, or bowling alley

Even the grocery store

Have a good day, he'd say, Be Blessed,
And I would.

Yeah.
A bus ticket to heaven

Money
Well
Spent.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.  

Thank you for your gift of our salvation, and the promise of a better world.  

In the name of your holy Son, Jesus, 

Amen.

Linking with Jen at Unite

Music of the Spheres

My heart, O God, is steadfast,

my heart is steadfast;

I will sing and make music.

Awake, my soul!

Awake, harp and lyre!

I will awaken the dawn.

Psalm 57:7-8

Music fills me. It is in my head from the time I wake up until I go to bed at night. I think I'll have to blame my mother. She has a song for everything - for every occasion, for any circumstance. I remember a trip our family took, one year, from Arizona to the midwest, to the East Coast and back. I think my mom sang the whole way - and never repeated a song. She learned to play the guitar when we were growing up. That guitar and singing around the fire are the basis of my favorite memories from camping - with just our family and with others. Visits to my mother's family always included pulling out the guitars and singing. I have some very talented relatives. I remember doing dishes with my sisters and playing a game. One of us would start a song, the game was to interrupt with a different song - if you repeated, you lost. Yes, it got a little noisy in our kitchen...

As we grew older, my sisters and I sang in choruses and choirs. We sang in church. We took piano and played and sang. Music filled our home.

Yesterday, I was struck by a section from the book Tuck Everlasting. The plot involves a choice - to drink or not to drink from a fountain of youth. The writing is excellent - luxurious even - full of the kind of figurative language a reader can really savor. There's a section where one of the characters is trying to explain why everlasting life would not be a blessing. It's that circle of life speech, but done in pieces. It creeps up on the reader. The final realization that death is part of life comes to the main character, a young girl, through the wise words of Tuck:

Your time's not now. But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing. But it's passing us by, us Tucks. Living's heavy work, but off to one side, the way we are, it's useless, too. It don't make sense. If I knowed how to climb back on the wheel, I'd do it in a minute. You can't have living without dying....I want to grow again...and change.                           

Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Bear with me.  So, the passage had me thinking... as Christians, we look forward to our heavenly life.  To life everlasting.  It made me wonder what heaven is going to actually be.  I mean, we've all heard the Bible stories - we will be made new, heavenly kingdom, hosts of angels, life everlasting - There it is again - the theme of the book, the theme of the bible... so I had to do some research.

I found an excellent article in "Christianity Today";  Peter Kreeft, a professor of philosophy at Boston University answered 35 of the most frequently asked questions about heaven.  You can read it here.  Yup, I read the whole thing.  I'll probably read it again - it's a lot to take in with one reading.  But here's what I found;  we won't be bored.  Unlike Tuck, we will be changing, growing for eternity, learning about God and one another in order to love more perfectly.  AND - there will be music!  I love this next quote - imagine the prose, poetry, and music of heaven if what we know in this world already moves us through the spectrum of human emotion...

Music, according to widespread tradition, was the first language, the language God spoke to create the universe. I strongly suspect there is more to this than we think. We usually think of music as ornamented poetry and of poetry as ornamented prose. But God is not prosaic. I think prose is fallen poetry and poetry fallen music. In the beginning was the "music of the spheres," and so it will be in the end.                

Peter Kreeft

Thank you, God, for music, for family, and for the promise of a heaven filled with both.