Where Did All The Holes Come From?

               When Chris and I married, we never had a vision to become rich.  We never even intended to save a lot of money and retire comfortably.  And we have never had a desire to accumulate a lot of nice stuff.  But, everyone has expectations when you marry, and we have had our share.  One of our expectations was to have no gaping holes in our dry wall.

                I remember one day, while in my parents’ kitchen, my Grandmother asked me when I was going to learn to cook and help out around the house.  My very proud twelve year old self informed her that I was going to have a maid when I grew up and so there would be no need for me to learn such things.  My Grandmother laughed uproariously of course. 

                The answer is no.  No, I have never had a maid.  And yes.  Yes, I have learned to cook, clean, and manage a household by the grace of God.   I have learned what I have needed to learn mostly out of necessity.  More importantly, I have learned to do many tasks because of people.  People have needs and needs are met by people. 

                When Chris and I were twenty-one and twenty, we both realized we were being drawn to the same road in life.  We both wanted to care for people and to show the love of God to people.  We wanted to help people in need.  Any need, both physical and spiritual. 

                Even at the very beginning of our marriage, in our tiny one bedroom apartment at the top of a flight of steep stairs, in a post World War II brick home, we held an open house for our friends.  Our little living room was packed.  We loved it.  We were discovering what hospitality was all about, people.

                The challenge for me has been the home itself.  You know what you have in your mind when you plan out a home and how it should look.  I am no different.  My dreams of what our home would look like and what would be in it have been many, and I have dreamt them often. 

              But God saw fit to do something in our lives.  He has always ensured that those dreams are never exactly realized the way we see them.  They never quite materialize.  We have always lived without something that we wanted.  The temptation has been to do something to fill the lack ourselves rather than to learn contentment. 

              Many times it has been the case that we would have loved to do something about the uncut lawn or the pencil murals on the walls or the laundry piled to the ceiling under the stairs.  We know that in order to step in and take care of all of the things left undone, we would have to say no to people. 

                Most days the people that we would have to say “no” to would be about 6 years old.  Yes, I could scrub and paint, caulk and wash, but the book would never be read, the conversation would never be entered into, and the tender hugs and kisses would be missed. 

                 We have young children at home, Chris works two jobs, and we educate at home.  Those things would be grounds for pulling the shades and placing a padlock on the door for sure!  But those are also the very reasons why we don’t. People need to see the real “us”.  Hiding our warts and wrinkles, be they unwashed dishes or our struggling attitudes, keeps people from getting to know who we really, truly are. 

             We have done our best to train, schedule, and teach our children to care for the home and to work hard, contributing to the welfare of the family.  But, we still have a pen mural in almost every room, every switch plate within four feet of the ground is gone, and I know of at least five gaping holes in our walls.  And no, Chris and I were not redecorating.

              Our children help to ensure our humility.  It’s hard to hide a six inch hole at the top of your stairs, or to ignore what is in the hole. We have to be who we are.  And this is good.  God is after the authentic, not the pretentious.  So, we find ourselves living with holes. 

              Just as Chris and I know the value of our walls, we know the value of time with our children.   I have often said that time is worth more to me than gold.  I mean it.  To have great amounts of time with those that I love is incredibly precious to me.  

                And so if time is a commodity, then we all must choose how and when to spend it.  King Solomon offered some words of wisdom about time.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

 a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

 a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

 What gain has the worker from his toil?  I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

            Our season in life right now is a time that is bursting full with life.  It is a time to teach and disciple.  The time to patch holes will come.  Our days and nights are quite full and we are beyond tired when we close our eyes at night.  Not so much time for handy man work around the house.  A lot of stuff breaks, becomes lost, or spills.  Many days I do feel like I go from putting out one fire just to turn around and do it again.  And so it was no wonder that my husband asked me where all the holes came from?

              I understood what he was saying.  We would have never even dreamed of putting holes in the walls of our childhood homes.  Why did our house keep taking such a hit? And so I told him my thoughts.

             Our home is our hub.  Everything we do begins at home and ends at home.  We eat most of our meals at home.  We are home every day, all day, and so we dirty up the kitchen and the bathroom and the yard.  We school our children at home as well.  And so instead of pulling the fire alarm at school or leaving butterscotch pudding in their lockers for a year, our children loose shoes in our marsh and make holes in our walls.  And this is why our house takes a beating, because we live here.

              I told him it was because he was a good father and husband.  The holes represent time spent on us.  And so in this season of life, we are living with holes.

             My hope is that others feel more at home because they can see our battle weary house.  The evidence of life is everywhere, and sometimes life ain't all that pretty.  I pray that the jelly smeared on the table and the boots in the yard help people to relax a little.  We aren't perfect, and neither are you, so come on in.

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Jesus Loves Me

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong.

Jesus loves me! This I know,
As He loved so long ago,
Taking children on His knee,
Saying, “Let them come to Me.”

Jesus loves me still today,
Walking with me on my way,
Wanting as a friend to give
Light and love to all who live.

Jesus loves me! He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in.

Jesus loves me! He will stay
Close beside me all the way;
Thou hast bled and died for me,
I will henceforth live for Thee.

By Anna B. Warner