Gratitude Day #2
Today I am grateful for my home.
My home is my refuge. It is my place of joy, and of healing. It's the place I run to when the world is raging around me.
We have lived here for 33 years. Before that, we lived in an older home in the central part of our town near the hospital. When I was expecting our last child, the sirens, motorcycles, and people walking the streets through all hours of the night had finally gotten to me.
Kerry was delivering mail to a bank one day, and brought home one of those booklets advertising houses for sale. I had no interest, for I was nearing the end of a pregnancy, my third child had been in and out of the hospital, and my mom was dying.
But, we decided to go to an open house that was being held over Mother's Day weekend. The realtor knew the right thing to do, for he had all of the windows open on the first floor where a lilac bush was in full bloom. I swooned over the smell.
It had been a house that had been foreclosed on, and was doing the bank no good. Our first offer was accepted, and plans went into place.
The men from the church moved our items in while I was in the hospital. I'm still trying to locate things.
Our home and its walls has heard a lot of laughter, smelled some delicious meals wafting through the rooms, and heard a few tears being shed. It has celebrated 33 years of holidays and birthdays and graduations. It has welcomed friends and family from across the country. It has sparkled, and it has been cluttered.
And, it mourned with the rest of us when one of those young faces met an early death at the age of 30. It was like its heart and its walls were sagging a little bit with ours.
My parents loved our house. We have acreage behind us, which looks over a ski resort. Once, when my mom and dad were here for a visit, they both said they couldn't imagine living in a house this grand. It was bigger than anything they had ever owned.
In our poorer days, Kerry and I couldn't afford to go anywhere for our weekly "date night". So, we would put the kids to bed a little earlier, and go sit on the deck to talk and drink root beer floats. Their bedrooms were directly above where we were sitting, and we could hear their talks and their chatter as the sun set and the lightning bugs emerged, lighting up their little rear ends for us to enjoy.
Our home is not a fancy one. It is not filled with expensive artwork or marble countertops. It is filled with pictures of the things that mean the most to me -- my family.
I am grateful for it, for I know there are many in the world who have no place to lay their head tonight. I will go to bed, thanking God again that I have been blessed so abundantly.
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