Today’s guest post if from my mom.  So many of my savorings of home are things that my mom taught me how to do or how to enjoy. You will see home for her has been far from what many of us are accustomed to but somehow she made the place special and a place she could welcome others. Here are her reflections on home…

The painting “The Magpie” by Monet is one of my favorites:  A farmhouse is nestled in snow-covered hills while a bird sings on a fence with sunlight streaming over the scene letting you know that though the trees are bare spring is coming. This represents an ideal of home that lures me yet one that I have never known…permanence, surrounded by the comfort of the familiar!

In my real life I have lived more places than most people on the planet!  My parents were missionaries and being on the move was very much part of the lifestyle: a house on stilts in a dusty town off the railway line,  a home at a Bible school/leprosarium, two different houses in a provincial capital, and that was all before I started attending boarding school in three different countries! My best count is that I have lived in thirty homes so far.

These days, I call Ft. Worth, Texas my home. We are living in a charming 1930’s bungalow complete with a front porch swing and  pecan trees whose branches sweep down across the front of the house loaded with a harvest of nuts.  This is not our home really; the owner needed someone to commit to 27 months of caretaking for his two dogs Jake and Elwood while he went into the Peace Corps!  We not only inherited the dogs but all the friends that one would make in the course of living in one place for 25 years!  (Doesn’t God have His ways?)  

We have owned our own home during one season of our life when my husband pastored a church in Houston, Texas.  It was a wonderful, new home that provided space for our high school and college kids to come and go and a place where we welcomed our first three grandchildren.  Because of this house my mother, a retired missionary was able to live with us for eight years. It was a sad day when I packed up that house to move thinking of all the family dinners around that big table and the friends who had come and gone. God actually sent a hurricane barreling right towards our neighborhood the day I finished packing the last box!  It was a reminder of His great power and the impermanence of all we put our earthly security in.  (Believe me there have been days when I have moved forward dragging my feet every step wanting to have that back.)

One of my favorite places in my home is this corner where I drink my coffee each morning and ground my life in the truth of who God is.  My father used to love Psalm 90:1 which says, “Lord, You have been our home (dwelling place) throughout all generations.”  From this place of deep and enduring relationship I have known “home” and have been able to open my life and space to new friends in every new place.  One evening this week a dozen new friends will gather and we will study the book of Luke which tells about the incarnation of Christ, One who came and made His home among us so that we could know who God is.

The other reasons I love my corner is that behind me are the faces of the people I love most- my children and grandchildren and on my lap is always my little friend, Bogie.  Memories of holidays together and the growing up years, the visits and hope of more visits to come make this house a home.

Thanks for sharing mom!  Can’t wait to have you and dad here for Christmas!

Hope you all have a great day as this week winds down. It’s Kindergarten field trip day for us today! I am going with Jackson on the big yellow bus!! Wish me luck.