Two weeks
after moving into our newly constructed dream home, my mom stood in the kitchen
with my dad and said, “It’s just sticks and bricks.”
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| My mom's dream home complete with widows peak, veranda, & porch swing. |
For the
longest time my mom dreamed about, planned, and designed her dream home. She
spent hours tearing out the pages of magazines, driving through fancy
neighborhoods, and searching local open house flyers. She dreamt of a
large two story Victorian house perched on a hill. She wanted a widows peak roof. She was adamant about a wrap around porch with a swing.
She wanted the large foyer entryway. She was passionate about the
dream home.
It took almost
three years, but from her dreams came a reality. The house was built—wrap
around porch and all. It was perched on the hill of two lots, and its
witch’s hat roof pointed high into the sky. I remember seeing the smile
on mom’s face when we finally moved in.
“It’s just
sticks and bricks,” Dad recalled as we stood in the foyer of my mom’s dream
home, saying our final goodbye in April 2015. I won’t lie, it was sad.
But then Dad reminded all of us that the love of our family is not
confined to the walls of Mom’s dream home. In fact, my mom’s dreams are
not limited to those sticks and bricks, as pretty as they are. Dad
reminded us that home for him now is where my brother, his wife, and their son
are. Home is where Sarah and I are (even in Malaysia). Home is
where he, his wife, and my new sisters are.
“Home,” Dad said, “is where Mom’s love and Mom’s dreams are being
carried out.” Home is about the people who share in love in that place.
I guess my
point is this: There are a lot of homes in our lives. There are lots of
buildings in which we dwell. But no matter how pretty or how big those
buildings are, no matter how sturdy or expensive they get, their walls cannot
form us into who we are. Yes, growth and formation take place within the
walls, but it is the love that people share in that place that fuels the
formation.
I think we too
often get stuck wanting bigger or better places. We get lost repairing,
replacing, or rebuilding the places in which we dwell. We focus on a
bigger this, or a fancier that. We get lost in the sticks
and bricks of our lives.
One of my
favorite hymns, All Are Welcome, says this: “Let us build a house where
love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell
how hearts learn to forgive. Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock
of faith and vault of grace; here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All
are welcome in this place.”
I will never
forget the sticks and bricks at 406 4th Avenue that my mom dreamed
up, but even more so I will never forget the formidable years I spent growing
up there in love. And as homes come and go, I am truly blessed and
thankful for the many places I've had the chance to call home - where love truly dwells.
This post is an excerpt from my article in the monthly St. Paul's Cross Connections Newsletter in April 2015.
