A Temporary Home

I have had a headache, massive headache, for a week now. I decided to pretend the headache wasn't there and kayak anyway. What if it is caused by a brain tumor? I need to get out there and enjoy life while I can, right?  The headache remained, but not as terrible once I got out on my kayak.

I kayaked on Lake Wylie, and meandered down a side cove where "my house" has been for sale for the past month. It is a small house, next to mansions. It was still a half million dollar sale price, but next to several multi-million dollar homes-- a steal. If my books go  viral, I could get this house. I kayak by the relatively small house on the cove often, dreaming of bringing my parents there. How much they would enjoy sitting on the shady dock, watching the blue herons! My children would come visit, and leap off the dock into the cool blue-green water and we would all cook hotdogs over the outdoor firepit as the sun set, sparkling on the water. Yesterday, still waiting on my books going viral, I cruised by "my house." The For Sale sign was gone! It was sold. My house would never be my house.

It's strange how much disappointment I felt over the loss of something I never owned. God was reminding me of something I often forget. Nothing here on earth is ours. All of it is borrowed, loaned, leased, and temporary -- created by a loving God for our brief sojourn here on the way to eternity. Some of it will be used as rewards, to give us respite and joy in an alien world. Some will be used as trials, to refine and remind us how we are to best develop our time and character in an alien world. And some will crush us, so that we will long more than anything to leave this alien world and return Home.

While "my house" was no longer for sale, the house next door to it was newly on the market. It was clearly a several million dollar home, the largest and most opulent by far on the lake. I would not mourn its sale because no matter how viral my books went,  that house was completely out of my reach. The two houses were as different in scale and magnificence as heaven to earth. Then I smiled a little, despite my melancholy over the loss of the house I had never owned. A mansion even more magnificent than the home whose reflection spread across the cove was promised me one day. One day I would no longer be a temporary resident in an alien world.

John 14:2-3 

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Philippians 3:20 

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Philippians 1:23 

I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.