Home of Your Dreams

We are all at times homesick.  And the home that we long for in our bones has very specific characteristics.  Some of us are fortunate enough to have known a home that had many of those specifics.  Some of us have never had a home like that, but are nonetheless homesick for such a place.  

We know that “home” is peaceful, full of joy, and comfortable – that is, we immediately feel at home in our own skin when we get there.  Most of us think of home as a place where there are wonderful meals around a common table, a place where real conversations happen naturally, where great ideas are exchanged and laughter is easy.

Beauty, too, is a part of “home.”  Good sounds, good smells, good tastes greet us when we walk in the door.  Flowers from the garden, clean linens, a handmade quilt, a piece of art, the morning sun shining through the window, a bowl of fruit, music from the piano or the flute, a candle in the window, all may be a part our idea of “home.”

The home we long for is also known for what is missing.  Ugly words and anger are not what we long for in this home of our dreams.  Discouragement and belittling comments, put-downs and reminders of past failures would never draw us “home.” Home is not cold, empty, lonely, drab, dark or dirty in our dreams. It is not confused by clutter or dampness from a lack of warmth and light. What is the home of your dreams? 

We know that heaven is ultimately the home of our dreams.  But Jesus prayed that God would let His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.  Could it be that He was praying that we would take seriously the calling of making our homes the kind of place to which we all so long to go “home”?

Could it be that Jesus was praying that more and more we would “get it” while we’re on earth and make our habitat here more like it will be in heaven so that others would be drawn to our homes like we’re all drawn to the hope of going to His home?

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Poised for Spring

There was another big snow last week.  Every twig, every fence, every pine branch was heaped high with frosting.  Even the basketball net looked like expensive lace.  The whole landscape was a photograph in black and white.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Well, except there was a tell-tale hint that it might not be a black and white. In the dormant forsythia outside my kitchen window perched an outrageously scarlet cardinal.  (No wonder the cardinal is the Indiana state bird!) My photographer friend, Angela, popped in to say she was headed to the creek to take some pictures.  She sent back another hint that we were not living in a black and white photo.  Two of our white swans were swimming on the silver pond.  Their orange bills gave such a splash of color that they looked like they had been photoshopped in!

Photo by Angela Kellogg

The bones of the maples and oaks, willows and sycamores revealed the amazingly beautiful and strong framework that in summer holds the weight of such luxuriant foliage that it would break a weaker structure.  Winter tells the whole truth.  The cedars and arborvitae that are in summer a dark aggressive green have backed into a more submissive, humble brownish-gray so as not to intrude on the stark drama of winter.

It was time to put on boots and earmuffs and make a few tracks of my own.  Such a wonderland deserved a closer look.  I found it was too cold for the snow to pack; it was like angel dust, and the slightest gust of wind made the glistening flakes fall again—from the stack piled on every high branch.  I passed the northern magnolia and, lo!  The tips of each twig had a swollen, velvety bud.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

The maples that from a distance looked so bare, were not bare after all, but held clusters of last year’s seed—helicopters, we used to call them, because the new ones in spring fall spinning like propellers to pierce the loose soil of my gardens, sowing seed for maple and boxelder sprouts everywhere.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

I held the fragile “bare” branches of every tree and shrub as I passed—the lilacs, the forsythia, the pussy willows, the dogwoods.  Each branch ended with a small tight bud. Life!  Just waiting and poised to respond to the first warming day, to open to the wooing of sunbeams.   Even in snow there is the promise of spring.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

I get it.  I have discovered that in every dormant season of my soul, in every paused waiting period, there is a subtle moving of something deep in my roots that is pushing its way upward and outward toward a promise.  There is a throbbing in the frozen vessels that insists that in spite of the most colorless day, even in the most chilling discouragement, resurrection will not be denied.  The strong framework of former growth makes me know that the budding that seems tight and frozen now will burst open with new flower and thick leaves. The trunk and branches of proven faith will hold the weight of glory to come!  The roots that have been driven deeper by the frigid days will pump new energy up, up to the very tips of my being.  The sun will shine again.  The earth will green again.  Spring will come, and my heart will sing!

Though the skies be gray above me
And I can't see the light of day;
There's a ray breaking through the shadows
And His smile can't be far away.

Though the earth seems bleak and barren
And the seeds lay brown and dead;
Oh the promise of life throbs within them
And I know spring is just ahead. 

Thank God for the promise of springtime;
Once again my heart will sing.
There's a brand new day a-dawning;
Thank God for the promise of spring.

By William J. and Gloria Gaither
© 1973 Hanna Street Music (BMI) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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The Prodigal's Mother

I’ve often wondered what the prodigal son’s mother was doing all that time her boy was away. The biblical account says the father had been the one who had the confrontation with their son. The young man wanted his inheritance now. He wanted to take charge of his own life. He ­didn’t buy the old promise of deferred gratification.

The father must have come back to the bedroom and collapsed on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, and sobbed as he told the boy’s mother that he had given their son his share prematurely and that he was, even as they spoke, packing to leave the house and set out on his own.

He ­hadn’t listened to reason; he ­hadn’t wanted to hear about how much richer he would one day be if he would trust his father to make wise investments for him and, as the inheritance grew, allow his father to teach him everything he would now learn the hard way. No, he ­wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted his share now, not when he was too old to enjoy it, like his father.

How torn that mother must have felt between the practical wisdom of her husband and a mother’s need to try to understand, too, where the boy was coming from. He ­wasn’t a bad boy. He was just immature, and she well remembered the passions that once drove this man whom she loved to take risks, strike out on faith. ­Hadn’t he loved her when she was a naïve and inexperienced girl? What had they known then of what the future would hold?

She could feel her heart splitting down the middle. She was helpless to stop what was happening to her family.

She stood silently with her hand on her husband’s heaving shoulder. What could she say? It was done now. The boy was an adult for all intents and purposes, yet in her heart she knew that, protected and provided for as he’d been, he’d be a sheep among wolves once he got wherever he was determined to go. He ­didn’t have a clue!

It was as if that whole evening were moving in slow motion, like the recurring dream she’d had since she was a girl, the dream in which she was trying to run down the lane to her old childhood farmhouse. Something she ­couldn’t see was chasing her and she could feel it gaining on her, but her legs ­wouldn’t work right, and she ­couldn’t seem to scream for help. She just kept trying to run or call but ­couldn’t do either. She would wake up in a sweat, unable to identify her fear.

She felt the same panic rise now. It had no face, yet she could almost feel it breathing on the back of her neck. She could only pray that her son would come to his senses before something tragic happened.

The boy left. His parents stood and watched as he slowly turned into a speck on the horizon, then disappeared. They both went back to their routine after that. Thank God for work! But they kept feeling as if there was something pending, that all their sentences ended with question marks.

Their other son kept things going. They could always depend on him, and they were grateful. The farm prices stayed steady. The crops flourished, yet somehow their prosperity and good fortune seemed pointless. The color in their lives was gone, and they moved about through sepia-toned days.

The mother would often catch her husband standing on the porch around sundown, looking at the place on the horizon where their son had disappeared, but he never mentioned how much he missed his son. She longed to talk about the things that gnawed at her heart and churned in her stomach, but her husband was a man of few words and she knew he would respect his son’s decision to walk away.

Often at night when the house was still and she could hear everyone’s measured breathing, she would slip down the stairs to the bench and table by the window. She would pick up the quill and write letters she knew could never be sent. There was no address for “a far country.” Or sometimes she would climb to the roof, where she could see the stars and feel the breeze stirring the night. Here where there was no risk of being heard by the household servants, she would send her son messages on the wind, for it must blow, too, where her son had gone. And she would pray.

Her husband saw him first. He was standing on the porch like he often did at the end of the day, straining toward the horizon. He called to her. Did she see it? That speck where the road met the waning sunset?

At first she saw only the heat waves rising from the freshly plowed field. No, to the right of the clearing—did she see it?

She ­couldn’t dare to hope, yet the figure now materializing was unmistakably a man ... but her husband was already running down the lane toward the road.

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