Home?

I can't get our new home out of my mind.  I am constantly placing furniture, wondering what to change, then researching how to change them.  Where will I go and drink my coffee in the mornings, which for me is the best time of the day?  What will Katie think?  She has such a great eye for houses.  What will the rest of the family think about it?  My mind is consumed.  

It made me stop and think about some things.  Just how often do I think of my eternal home?  Really, not very often.  I will be there for a very long time, if you can even call it time. Since my limited mind can not wrap itself around a "time" without "time" I will still refer to it as "time".  Christ said He is going to go ahead of us and prepare the way to our eternal home. Paul said we can build it with gold and precious stones, or the alternative could be what we use in the construction could be burned up.  

I have looked at quite a few houses this last week.  Some of them needed to be burned down and started again, at least just part of the house, to get rid of the parts that were not constructed well, not usable, not aesthetically pleasing, or so out of date that no one wanted to use them anymore.  There seems to be a time in the last century when you look at houses built in the 50's or 60's and say they are now out of date.  But, if you go into an old farm house or an antebellum home, they aren't out of date they are antique and beautiful.  Why is that?  The antique homes are older than the others.  Which would you rather be an antique house with lots of memories and character or an out of date house that is just that, out of date?  The antique one makes you feel warm, inviting, and brings back feelings, mental and emotional. The other makes you want to run the other way.  If I think about my life as an old house, I would much rather be warm, inviting, with lots of memories oozing from my rafters, and the atmosphere of the house.  My spiritual house cannot just have memories.  It has to have active, alive, and vibrant happenings now.  It has to have repairs (constantly), and as things "die" in it, they must be replaced by life.  Sanctification, the process of the Christian life as we become more and more like Christ, is a process, it is a marathon, not a sprint.  

I am building a much more important house now, and it will count for eternity, forever.  How am I building it?  With precious gems like; putting God's priorities above my own, loving God's people, loving His Word, etc.....

Building for forever.............Lynn

Farewell

I wrote this about a month before moving was inevitable.  At the time, I thought we would live in our Southern Pines home till retirement.  Now, our home of fifteen years is officially under contract and we are looking for a new home in Charlotte.  Mixed feelings, ambivalence reigns.  I do look forward to the many memories that God will give us in the new home.  Sunday nights Ken has been leading an evangelistic Bible Study in Charlotte at one of the members of the core groups homes.  One of the couples now want to host one for their friends.  I am looking forward to the time when we can host unbelievers in our own home just as we did at Windsor Lane.  

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?