2019 - Gratitude Month #3 - My home

Gratitude day #3

I am so grateful for my home. It is the most beautiful building in all of North America; perhaps the world.

We don't move around much. We have lived here for over 35 years, and I want to stay in our home for as long we are able to.

Kerry found our home while delivering mail to a bank. There was a catalog there that shows different properties for sale in the area, and he picked one up. On the back page was this house. It had been part of a foreclosure, and was available at a good price.

So, he brought it back to our other house to show it to me.

I was not interested at all. We had three children and I was heavily pregnant with the fourth. The third child had been in and out of the hospital. My mom was dying.

There was no way.

Kerry decided to bring me out and show it to me. That was all it took. A short time later, a realtor opened it up for us to see, and a lilac bush was in full bloom, whose scent was filling up the entire downstairs. It was Mother's Day weekend.

Our first offer was accepted, and we made our plans. While I was delivering Erik in the hospital, men from our church were moving our household. We now lived in a 16-room house on 1 1/2 acres of land.

It has been one of the greatest blessings we have ever had.

Birthdays, Christmas mornings, camping in the backyard, Kerry climbing trees with the kids, holiday meals, Family Home Evenings (gathering with only our family every Monday night, and shutting the world out), piano lessons, teaching the kids how to harmonize, funeral gatherings, taking shelter during tornado warnings, hunkering down during snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures, etc.

I think our beautiful home has seen it all.

One particularly tender memory comes from the many times the six of us would arrive home late at night. I was dog-tired, and would go in the house...alone. Where was everyone else?

They were in the yard with their dad looking up at the night sky as he showed them the stars and the constellations. We have no light pollution here in the country, so he would be teaching them in either the front yard or on the deck. All five of them would have their necks craned upwards as they marveled. Kerry was also teaching them to look heavenward for many reasons.

Our house burst with joy at each new accomplishment we would have - learning to walk, being potty trained, getting a good grade, and welcoming someone home.

And, our house wept as we said our goodbyes to our oldest child, whose voice would no longer be heard within its walls.

I guess the important thing is that if something ever happened to our house, I would still have a home, which is much more than the physical structure. Kerry and I planned our home before we ever owned one.

Today I am grateful for my home, the learning that has taken place within its walls, my shelter for keeping the evils of the world out, and for the people who grew up within its embrace.

That would include me.