My Front Porch at Raisin Cake Estates

 I won't always live where I live now.  Some day we will pack it all up and move to a different house, with different neighbors, different yards, rooms, and memories.  Lately, now that I am almost fifty, I have caught myself thinking more backward than I do forward.  I also have been given to sitting on the front porch looking out over my yard.  Nothing is permanent. Nothing will last forever.  

As I sit here, I recall the time that Karen broke both of her arms when she was 10, while riding the neighbor's scooter.  I can see all of our five children playing football, playing tag, or capture the flag with innumerable amounts of other kids from the neighborhood, from backyard Bible Clubs, or birthday parties.  I can also see girls dressed up in prom gowns taking pictures with their dates.  Smiling the smiles of dreams of knights in shining armor coming to sweep them off their feet.  Visions of others packing up as they go off to see what they are made of at the university.  At that point they are completely grown up (in their minds) and of course they know that they will change the world.  As we look on, wondering in how the falleness of reality will set into their souls, and they will then realize that He who holds the world in His hands will use them in ways that they have never dreamed of, and they will be humbled in the process, but He alone will gain the glory.  

On my front porch I see across the street to our neighbor's house.  About thirteen years ago my husband led the Dad that lives there to Christ, and life for them and us has never been the same.  Our daughters became best friends, our sons became best buddies, and we gained a family that will last for eternity.  Oh I know, we may very well loose them along the way. Distance could very well come between us, but eternity will always bring us back together. How many meals have we shared, how many tears, how many feuds, how many forgivenesses.  I can no longer count.  It doesn't really matter anymore.  For the past thirteen years they have been knitted to our hearts in ways that we can not describe.  I can also look down the street and see other friends that have graced our lives.  Children that I love, that I have seen grow, change, develop, accept Jesus and be spiritually renewed.  All from my front porch.  My blessings are as numerous as the pine cones that dot my pine straw. 

In my mind I can see the hundreds of people that have passed through my door to come to dinner, a small group, a chat, or a crisis situation.  The talks of life, priorities, laughs, Christ.  I see many, many people opening the Word seeing what God has for them and their lives, and their families lives.  I also see and feel the betrayals, the sting of hurts unmentioned, the anger, the annoyance of sin when it is confronted, as the messenger is shot, vomited on, and gossiped about.  That is when we sense in a very small, shallow way how our own sin caused the God of the Universe to say; "forgive them for they know not what they do."  All from my front porch. I can only surmise, dream, or contemplate the ways in the future in which God will once again dot my memories like pine cones at Raisin Cakes Estates,  where the pine straw is sprinkled with pine cones, memories, tears, and laughter.  What more could you ask out of life?