Family Life Resources•Newsletter
| NYM
Ministries
Family Life Resources•Newsletter |
| Subscribe to receive Today's Native Father with all its features FREE, | Articles Index | Read current issue of TNF | |
|
PRODUCT/RESOURCES INDEX |
This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #142, December/January, 2005. Related articles from this issue: |
What Does it Take to Make a House a Home A letter to mothers by Ilva Hertzler |
|
Dear Mothers, It’s been less than six weeks that we left the house we called home for seventeen years. So many memories, so many friends...my children spent their teen-aged What does it take to make a house a home? For the past month this is what I have been attempting to do, make another house our home. It is a “fixer-upper,” needing lots of creative tender loving care. How do you make a home out of a house that is so different from the one to which you are accustomed? Every routine needs to be changed, even the way I sit next to my husband when we have our morning devotions. With the events of Hurricane Katrina I have wondered even more. “Can you have a home if you don’t have a house?” When we came to this house, I wondered where “my place” would be. At the house we left, my place was in the basement in a little room which had been our eldest son’s bedroom. I had a desk tucked in the corner among other stored things, and that was my prayer nook. It was a place where I could go for privacy, praying, reading God’s Word, doing my journal. I could leave my papers spread out and my Bible open, not needing to put them away each time. Where would I have such a place in this house? Was it really necessary? Couldn’t I just sit on the sofa, read and think? This is what I did for a bit, with a basket holding my Bible, journal and study materials. But it didn’t feel right to me. Now I’ve organized a desk that I once used for sewing. The drawers were filled with patterns, thread and scissors, stuff like that. I took it all out and put it somewhere else, and now I have a place to spread out my Bible and prayer list, a place to hold cards, stationery, and other things that I want near by. It’s not very private, but for now it will be all right. In the meantime, when I was feeling unsettled (I still do in many ways), when I was trying to adjust to new surroundings, people, culture, financial constraints, physical weariness, when I was needing patience and strength of character and heart, the Lord spoke to me. I had a “place” in His heart, He told me. My home is not here in this world. It is in Heaven where it is untouched by earthly decay. That gave me rest, hope and peace. Moving, leaving the place where for years we had lived and loved and learned, has been a major milestone for me. It has not been easy. Dave and I long for a home on this earth. However, I’m becoming more aware that I am a pilgrim and a stranger . This address where I get my mail is not my final destiny. As a child of God, “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.” But in the meantime, I want to make this house a place of comfort and peace for my husband, family and all who come through its doors. I found this quote by Thomas Champness: “It’s easy passing milestones when you’re going home.” I think that when I have my eyes on my Heavenly Home, somehow this house to which we have moved will become my earthly home, a place where the heart is, a place of love, beauty, neatness, simplicity and safety. So I still leave you with the question: How do you make your house a home? With joy. Ilva |
|
ears there. It was a house that creaked with every step, a house whose doorways would shift with the frost heaves. The kitchen was small and so was the living room, but it was home.