A home and its function

“By wisdom a house is built, by understanding it is established; And by knowledge its rooms are filled with every precious and pleasing possession.” – Proverbs 24:3-4

I’ve read four pages of Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors tonight. Just four, and I am sitting here bawling. The way she describes her home as a revolving door, how the dents and dings tell memories, as she laughs and cries and is overwhelmed by it all in her kitchen. She describes how people grew up there and moved on. How she felt unworthy as a mother and cried and danced and sang and breathed life into that house. It’s everything I know is true of my home – though not lately, these days the house is quiet. But when I think of my home and its function, it has been that: bringing people closer to God, being the light for a child who needed it, and being a home for the broken. In this home, I have had moments where I have completely fallen apart and was surrounded by friends who spent hours on the couch with me or made me dance it out or just held me. I grew up in this home. They, too, grew up here, along with the little girl who brought this home to life. It holds so many memories and every emotion. And yet, right now, it is still. Some days, I feel there is little life here. I enter my office to work and then walk across the hall to my bedroom to lie down and the greatest commotion is the howling wind through the rafters. Yet this morning, a 22-year-old came over for coffee who is trying to find her way, and my roommate is settling in her first home outside of college where she is learning how to navigate life independently for the first time. Nevertheless, basements flood and things break, and I stress. I isolate, trying to make sense of it all alone instead of inviting people and the Lord into the home that has built me, that God has used for His good. I get frustrated and forget that this home is beautiful and loved and mine, and yet not mine. It is His. He has loved every person that has come through this door uniquely. Each dent and scratch and flaw tell a story, a memory. Today, I thank God for those memories that shaped me and others. For not only providing me a house, but a home. A home for so many of His children to grow up and ask questions and learn from Him. A home that has provided comfort in my hardest moments and my biggest joys alike. For walls that have built me. For a strong foundation. Thank you, God.