Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Heart to Heart: Home to Home

A little girl was once asked if she was sad because her family was homeless. "My goodness, Mister! We aren't homeless! We just don't have a house to put it in right now."

A small corner in your parent's house, a college dorm room, a honeymoon hotel, a first apartment.  Though ever so humble, it's home sweet home. It will be up to you to create a place that welcomes, encourages and comforts. Make a shalom house, a house of peace. Create a home no matter what house you have to put it in.

Laurie looked about our humble apartment and grinned. "Everywhere you live you make it a home. I walk in and feel peaceful. It looks as if you've always been here and always will be." Since then God has placed us in six new residences and the one we now inhabit has been our home for only 2 months.

Do you spend too much time collecting creative ideas for the future in the midst of a messy room and disorganized life? It will breed frustration and discontentment.  Build a creative peaceful space for your life. It will generate comfort, hope and welcome.

Look around the room. Are there whimsical things that make you smile? Photographs that make you remember? Is it clean and tidy? Does it welcome weary souls to stay? Create a home whether your house is a castle in a faraway land or a small room in an attic.

Simple beauty is available for everyone. The centerpiece on my kitchen table may be a mason jar of flowers, a bowl of autographed baseballs, a basket of memory verses, or as is true today, a hand painted bucket of rocks and shells.

If I had waited until we bought a house before I created a home and welcomed people into it, I would still be waiting after 33 years of marriage. That was not God's plan for our life and ministry. But every day I make my home a soft, comforting peaceful place.

I cannot prepare a room for Jesus the way that Martha and Mary would do. How I would love to make Him cinnamon rolls or a glass of iced spice tea! But, Jesus is a constant presence in my home and others are welcome here in His name.

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