Welcome home

Bright balloons swirled in the air above my friend's mailbox. I sat on my porch and wondered which thoughtful neighbor had tied those welcoming festoons there. On the end of the mailbox was a sign that said Welcome Dooley! And on her door was a sign that had a picture of a big black curly haired dog with the words WELCOME. Inside the house, I had sneaked in a painting I had done of the dog and his new mom, looking out at a sunrise. It was propped on the table so it would be the first thing the new dog and happy owner saw as they walked in the door. Beneath it, I propped a sign that said, "Welcome to your new life Dooley!"

Two months ago, this dear friend had had to put her beloved dog down. It had been a horrible, and devastatingly sad day. All of us neighbors grieved for her and with her. The dog had been my unmarried friend's companion and best friend. She mourned the loss of the best part of her life for the past twelve years.We all loved Lilly, the friendly black lab. And then my friend, two months later, told us she had seen a dog on the Petfinder site. Something about that dog touched her. The big black labradoodle was 6 years old. Black dogs have a tough time being adopted, and few families want an older dog. But my friend knew this was the dog she was meant to have. She drove to Charleston to pick him up, giving us neighbors the time to prepare our welcome.

I sat on the porch and saw her car was back. Dooley was home! I sat on my porch sipping my tea, knowing that I could not barge in on her first moments with him in his new home. But I watched the door anxiously. Finally, Dooley and my friend emerged and I raced over. He is as friendly and gentle a dog as God makes. All the neighbors swarmed around him, and he licked them all, though I noticed he leaned against my friend when the attention was a tad suffocating.

One other neighbor and I walked with my friend and her new dog around the block. We came across a group of neighbors on the other end of the neighborhood. They asked my friend where was her old dog? They hadn't heard about Lilly. My friend explained she had been forced to put her beloved old dog down, and then added, "So, this is Dooley, and he has mighty big shoes to fill."
I glanced at the huge dog,"Well, he has mighty big paws," I said.

And that story summarizes the way life goes,I think. There is sadness, struggle, disappointment, and death one day, but the next there is soft comforting fur, unconditional love, outpouring of celebration and rejoicing by friends when life turns sunny, and the happiness of one who had been alone who is no longer alone. Life is ultimately about finding home where you are loved. Personally, I think every glimpse of joy we have here on earth of hopes renewed, of redeeming love, of welcoming arms, reminds us of the greatest welcome we will ever receive. God will throw open the gates of Heaven, and instead of the nothingness we all have felt and all ultimately fear, there will be the realization we have finally found our way Home.

Luke 8: 40
⁴⁰ Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him.

Matthew 10: 11-13
¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. ¹² As you enter the home, give it your greeting. ¹³ If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it

Mark 10:29-31

   ²⁹ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel ³⁰ will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

Blessings abound

There's a reason why moving service men are young and brawny. In case we had any dreams of opening a moving van company, they were squashed after the second load of heavy furniture from Matt's old apartment to his new one. I was happy to help my son and new daughter in law, but I might be past my prime for lifting bookshelves to the roof of minivans. Fortunately, hubby Arvo was with me and he managed to keep us both from being just another statistic, felled by a large couch. I slept like the dead last night though, dreaming about shoving elephants into vw bugs.

Matt hasn't even seen his new home yet. He and Karissa are in Florida for his law internship, but the old apartment lease ended this week in Virginia, and they needed a new apartment for the upcoming year. I don't know how they managed, but they found online a whole 2 bedroom house to themselves in a charming little village near their school, affordable, and signed the rental agreement...all from the comfort of their place in Florida. Just one tiny problem remained - to get the large stuff from the old to the new.

This is why God made mothers. Mothers will do anything for their dear children. And so will fathers when mothers ask them to.

Moving monstrous furniture in as few trips as possible requires exceptional visual spatial skills. After a few disagreements about which direction to shove a few choice items, we managed in just two trips to load, unload, clean the old place, and even get Matt's security deposit back, which was a bonus he wasn't expecting.

And as I stood on their new front porch and looked out, I saw a huge ring of mountains, almost close enough to touch. It gleamed blue and purple through the nearby trees.

How happy they will be to wake up and look out at that every morning! How wonderful to start a new life in such beautiful surroundings. Blessedness abounds, I thought gazing at that mountain.

(NIV)Genesis 49:26
Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

I'm Turning My Life Around

I was approaching on my bicycle, and wasn't sure what the walking sign was. It looked like a giant cloud, but the sign said Mattress Sale, so I thought perhaps it was a walking mattress. As I came closer, I saw it was a giant bunny rabbit, and the determined face inside the head portion was chanting something over and over. As I passed, I heard her say, "I'm turning my life around."  This was incongruous enough coming from a giant bunny hoisting a Mattress Sale sign but what I heard her say as I was a little further down the sidewalk was even more memorable, "I'm giving my life to God."

You never know what kind of circumstances will finally spark that moment of faith, of resolution to be more than what you have been, to live finally in the grip of the Savior. I wondered whether the Bunny Sign job was the straw that broke the camel's back, or was it the first step out of the morass? There are many things much much worse than working as a giant bunny selling mattresses.  I have to admit that once I was out of earshot, I did laugh. I couldn't help it. However, her glowing and determined face did not appear comical despite the costume around it. Her face seemed resolute and even noble.

I noticed from my car later that afternoon, she was still in the bunny suit at the same spot, and while I couldn't hear her, she was clearly still repeating those words over and over-
"I'm turning my life around. I am giving my life to God."

On that same bikeride, I had ridden the same lovely Greenway trail I usually ride. I was thinking how I had grown used to its beauty, and it had become commonplace. I no longer looked upon the stream and woods with the same glow of appreciation I had felt when I first gazed upon them. I had been contemplating how God's messages are sometimes so frequent, so familiar, and so similar, that I lose sight of how spectacular they are, every single one of them. I had resolved that I would try to notice and revel anew over what had become familiar.  And then, the giant God loving bunny had plopped into my drifting stream of thoughts. Complacency and familiarity were suddenly rippled with the splash of incongruity.

"Here is my message that has been of Old but each time it is New!," said God, "Walk in the newness of my spirit and I will give you abundant life, new and overflowing.  And while it is yet today.....HOP to it!"

Acts 5:19-21 (New International Version)

¹⁹But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. ²⁰"Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life."