A Happy Home Life

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Some children grow up without a traditional home, but most of us lived at one address for several years at a stretch, moving only a handful of times while growing up. We were fed, cared for, kept clean and given proper rest in those homes, and we were loved.

Moving away from home can be traumatic for children and adults alike. But the bottom line is not about where but who. If family relationships are grounded in love, a move with the right people is all it takes to calm us.

Linnea and Adam arrived in Michigan this week bringing a home along with them, a motor home. Their borrowed RV made the 1200 mile journey part of their family vacation fun, especially for 3 year old Skylar and 18 month old Micah. This mini-home had everything needed to cover the miles without leaving home: a refrigerator, stove, bathroom, table and benches, couch, cabinets, microwave, shower, even a queen size bed.

And as excited as Skylar was to give me a tour of their home-on-wheels, her most important point was letting me know where Daddy sat to do the driving and what Mommy did in the back. Nice as it was, without those two, it wouldn’t have been a home at all.

Maya Angelou said, “The ache for home lives in all of us,” a good way to describe the desire each of us has to belong to a group bound together by love. I think it even goes deeper than that. All of us want to be accepted as we are, in an environment where no one tries to change us. We want a place to go where the love shown doesn’t depend on our performance like it does when we’re away from home in the work place, in school, in the neighborhood, in certain friendships. We know if there’s a chance for love to be unconditional anyplace, it’ll probably be at home.

Unfortunately, most homes can’t offer that kind of flawless love. We often expect more from each other than can be given, and a perfect home doesn’t exist. Well, that’s not quite true. Those of us who believe in heaven have a perfect home life awaiting us.

I often think of Nate in this regard, not quite sure what phase of heaven or paradise he’s experiencing but quite sure he’s surrounded by unconditional, perfect love. He’s made a big move away from our family home here on earth where love was flawed and is now dwelling in something Jesus labeled “paradise.”

We’ve all heard the expression, “Love begins at home.” That’s literally true. It begins.

Thankfully it doesn’t end there, since disappointments and imperfections are found at every address. Instead we can look forward to an eventual home of loving perfection and complete acceptance. And most importantly, the right Person will be there, ensuring that this place will be the home we’re all aching to find.

And we won’t even need a well-equipped RV to get there.

“They [Old Testament people of faith] were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:16)

Can we fail?

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This week my friend got some shocking news. Cancer has invaded several of her major organs, and short of God’s intervention, her prognosis is terminal.

Thankfully she’s a Christian and believes wholeheartedly that either way, live or die, cancer or healing, her faith in God will carry her through. And I hope it will.

Today I prayed for her out of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light… I will fear no one… I will not be afraid… I will trust God… marvel at his goodness… ask for his guidance… triumph over my enemies… sing and praise Him.” I prayed these things would be true for her as the future unfolds and that her trust in God won’t weaken.

Apparently there’s a chance Christians can lose their faith. I don’t mean lose salvation, just their hope in the Lord. After a terminal cancer diagnosis, it’s easy to become downcast, weak or defeated. If that weren’t a possibility, Jesus himself wouldn’t have demonstrated how to pray against it.

In Luke 22, we see him detailing last minute instructions to his dearest friends, the 12 disciples. They’ve finished sharing the Passover meal and within minutes Jesus will leave the room and walk to Gethsemane where he’ll begin suffering intensely for you, for me, and for these 12.

His time on earth is running out, and surely there’s urgency in his voice, no doubt making the men uncomfortable. He tells them that shortly a friend will betray him, after which he’ll be intensely tortured, then forced to sacrifice his own body and blood.

Certainly the men, sitting in the glow of gentle lamp light with full bellies, don’t want to hear this. They quickly change the subject, but Jesus, possibly on the edge of irritation, needs their full attention and does his own subject-changing. “Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.” (v. 31, NLT)

And suddenly they’re hanging on his every word thinking, “You mean our names came up in a conversation between you and Satan?” This would alarm any of us. But it’s Jesus’ next statement that should have concerned them most. “I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.”

We learn by following the story that despite Jesus having already prayed for Peter, he does fail, causing heartache for Jesus and anguish for Peter. How many of the others failed, too? How many lost hope in Jesus and behaved accordingly?  How many of us? What about my friend?

To know Jesus is praying strong faith into us today increases our determination to hang onto him tighter, no matter what’s going on around us… even if it’s terminal cancer.

I’m going to pray for my friend the same way Jesus prayed for his, that her faith won’t fail, from now until the very end.

“Teach me, Lord, what you want me to do, and lead me along a safe path. I know that I will live to see the Lord’s goodness in this present life.” (Psalm 27:11,13)

Joining the SCAC

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At 12:55 this afternoon, Jack and I joined the “Society of the Centrally Air Conditioned” (SCAC). When that first puff of cold air came floating through our 72 year old registers, the two of us, poised to feel it, rejoiced. By 5:00 our hot cottage had been given new life at 76 degrees, and the condensation on my windows had moved from inside to outside. Amazing.

Nate and I enjoyed air conditioning in our Illinois home and eventually took it for granted. But this year the combination of no AC and a high-temp Michigan summer put AC status at “dearly desired.”

During this year’s first cluster of 90 degree days, I took a poll of how many homes in our neighborhood were in the SCAC and how many weren’t. While walking Jack, I counted the houses with closed windows (cool inside) and open (hot inside), learning that 80% of my neighbors were already in the club.

This morning, pre-AC, as I put on clean clothes that already felt wet, a rush of anticipation helped me recognize that cool air on a hot day is a precious commodity never to be taken for granted.

How many other precious commodities am I currently taking for granted? Remembering back to when Nate was still with me, I under-appreciated far too many things about him and our marriage. Just today I thought of something quite special about him that I took for granted at the time.

When I asked him to do something for me, such as buy the ink replacement for my printer (an unusual cartridge, hard to find but available in the Loop) he’d always come home with my request completed. Sometimes I’d forget I’d even asked, but he never forgot to get it done. One day I said, “How do you always remember to do those things?”

He said, “Simple. When you ask a favor, I always do that first.”

In other words, on a day when he knew he couldn’t possibly get everything done, he began with me. Did I fully appreciate it?

But those days are over. I’m no longer married and can’t reverse taking Nate’s kindness for granted. But how about now? What’s happening now that I should be appreciating? The scriptural Paul daily appreciated being included in God’s family, allowed to have an ongoing relationship with Christ. He couldn’t get over that the Lord would allow him to represent the Gospel to others, after he’d led such a sinful life. He never once took his salvation for granted.

But shouldn’t that be the attitude of us all? Sin is sin, whether small or large, and we’re all in Paul’s camp, none qualified to be in God’s family on our own. Are we openly appreciative we belong to him? And when he gives us an assignment, are we as eager to fulfill it as Paul was?

Although I’m appreciative of my membership in the SCAC tonight, that’s nothing compared to my membership in God’s family. The question is, do I really appreciate it…

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him.” (1 Timothy 1:12)