Dear Friends,
Have you ever returned from a two-week vacation with two tired children in the back seat asking every minute, “Are we home yet? How far?”
You’ve played every travel game you know. They’ve heard all the Bible stories they want to hear. They are begging you to drive all night so they can sleep and wake up at home.
“Home” has a nice ring to it. Once home there are mouths to feed immediately. Oh, good! Junk food leftovers! Now there are clothes to wash, baths to give, letters to read, and checks to write. We’re home.
Invisible gnats seem to swarm around your head while everyone wants to believe they are the priority. The best of homes work diligently to make home a safe haven where space and togetherness have equal permission and respect. “In honor preferring one another” works great when you get the trick to it. Hunting the lost toy, feeding Dad right now, and giving Mom two minutes to get off her sore feet are all part of the tricks—but it takes a while to catch on.
Sadly, many homes create normal living styles from independent planets. These planets exaggerate the weaknesses and diminish the strength of others. This creates pseudo-relationships and causes awkwardness—always waiting for the other shoe to drop and get out of the way. Often seclusion and isolation evolves while we seek our own space and remain there. Eventually, someone emotionally binges. No one deserves to live where emotional binges are the norm.
Home is where best manners should be addressed and cultivated. Each member has a sacred knowledge of boundaries. Sometimes we don’t know what they are, but we are willing to lay ours down to discover and apply God’s idea of honor and respect.
First stop: parsonage. We arrived at our new home, 813 Vine, Fairmount, Indiana. I was seven months pregnant with no children out of the hamper yet, so it was up to Don and me what the walls would hear in this place. The home was complete with bathroom, dining room, garage, and furnace. Awesome!
“Self” and I agreed that whatever they wanted here for a pastor’s wife, I would be it.
Next stop: church (complete with stained-glass windows, an organ, and oak pews—contrasted from first church with slatted pews). “Self” said, “Now I know we’re not going anywhere.”
“Self” will get you in trouble. The euphoria lasts as long as the new pastor’s honeymoon.
Consequently, my interpretation of “home” changed by personal growth and necessity:
| 1. | Home Is Where God Is |
The trappings are an expression of us, but they do not make home. When we can’t be happy until we get the next thing, we’re not “there” yet. When things or people are nervously held, they are not safe. Abraham found this out when he came down from the mountain after offering Isaac. When you give it up, it no longer clings.
| 2. | Home Is Experiencing God Together |
After Pentecost, “they went to their own kind.” The common denominator of a happy home is Jesus Christ. Pestering someone to be altered to our liking aborts togetherness and disallows individuality. The key is experiencing God together while maintaining individuality.
| 3. | Home Is a Special Chair |
My husband defines home by his special chairs where he meets God early and late. He knows each home, his chair, and what happened there. My biggest comfort is to see him in his chair, oblivious of my coming or going. Stephen asked me the color of my chair when God altered my life. I said, “Red.” He said, “Mine is green.”
| 4. | Home Is a Nook |
Women need nooks that are theirs. I have carved out my nooks: they are my sanctuary, lined with books that have blessed my life. I pray often for the anointing of the author who represents these books. “The Holy Spirit filled all the house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2).
| 5. | Home Is Your Inner House |
Home is where the Holy Spirit lives and where He’s always in residence (John 14:16). He goes to work, school, band, the grocery store, and on vacation. His address is the same as ours. He will go in and out with us until we go to our eternal home, now being prepared. But now, we experience Him in us—in a chair, a friend, or a nook.
| 6. | Home Is for Children |
Children will keep you from getting too proud or too humble. They will mimic us.
I watched a little boy and his father finish their meal together. The father took a napkin and wiped spills from the table; his son did the same. The father took another napkin to wipe spills from the seat; his son watched and did the same.
I was walking through the checkout line once with my groceries. I failed to notice a little boy with his head down playing with a toy. My purse (which is lethal) hit his head. I started to leave with my groceries and I heard a child’s voice. He was looking at me, saying, “Say sorry! Say sorry!”
Don’t forget to “say sorry” to a child or an adult. It‘s the magic word for home.
St. Augustine said, “You don’t live where you live. You live where you love.”
Love,
Ruth Ann