a house, a family, my home

Well this week it is down to Sooner and me (Sooner is our Dog). Belinda and Trey have left for 'Camp Gap', where they will serve as counselors with our Children at Mt. Lebanon. And Taylor, of course, has lived in Uptown, now, going on 3 years. So... it really is just down to me and the dog. Which has got me thinking about what I call, 'home.'

As I walked about the place this morn I thought over some of the 14 years this past March since moving into our house on Steeplechase Drive. Trey was 3 and Taylor was 10 - and I am amazed at how time has passed. Certainly long enough for me to have a cache of memories. Every closet, every wall, every mark on the floor - all of them seem to have a story. The progress of Trey's growth is noted with marks on a closet wall, and pictures that hang tell stories of things we'll never forget. Moments in time when the only thing that mattered was that we saw it and now have a memory to share. There's Taylor's acceptance letter into OSU, framed and on display - and a picture of her dancing on the lawn of the White House in Washington DC, when she was there with our church youth on Mission Trip. All amidst a wall full of other photo's telling the tale of the girl who once lived up the stairs. How can I forget the night her boyfriend fell through the attic ceiling, into the middle of our bedroom, while hiding from Taylor to surprise her. The surprise was more than he bargained for! And the color shade variance of a ceiling dutifully 'repaired' remain my nightly reminder of that memory long ago.

When we moved into our house in early 1996 Belinda and I had come to stay. We'd saved all we could, had sold our house just to the south of Trinity Mills, to now move as close to the church as we might. Our life was here, and our hearts were too, and all that was left was us getting as near our ministry as we might. So that here we have stayed - one day, one year and one memory at a time - to see what once was just a house become the place our family would call home. For just as Edgar Guest wrote, "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home," we Dennis' now know this as true.

The Bible says little about the structures that we live in, but much about the way we are to live while in them. It tells us that God's Word's, His laws and precepts, are to be in our hearts, on our lips, and posted on our doorposts and gate. Serving as reminders, whether going out or coming in, of both He and His ways. (Deut. 6) And though from our house we do move in, out, and about a lot; and sometimes feel the only thing we do here is 'hang our hats,' occasionally we talk, listen, and work to make sure we talk then of Him.

So I pray that your days this summer will find you enjoying time as family, whether traveling and away or at home and just down the street. I pray that you and yours might enjoy what is best about the place in which you live. Not its size or decor - whether big, little, new or not - but because it houses the people you love serving reminder of the times there spent with God. If away, be faithful - with each other and and to Him! And if at home, be there - always as He'd have you be! Working to make your house into a home, indeed!

For now and til then, I remain -

Pastor Sam