Devotions
from The Woods @Wanamaker
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Home, there’s just something about it isn’t there? When I was in college I’d come home on breaks and I’d sleep like I hadn’t slept in years. There was the familiar smell, the bed that had perfect lumps in all the right places, the comfy couch, the noises I’d grown up with, a bathroom I didn’t share with a bunch of strangers or have anyone stealing my clothes to be funny, but mostly it was the people. There’s always been something about being with my parents (still) that feels like home, safety, love.
We didn’t have a perfect home growing up, but it was ours, my dad worked super hard to make it a very nice place to live. When we moved to that town we looked for a home the church could buy to have a parsonage. The house we ended up in was the town joke. Rumors the foundation was built on Styrofoam (it wasn’t, that’s just for whatever reason what they used as insulation in the basement). It was the ugliest yellow (and I like yellow). It was run down had weeds three foot high! No one wanted it. The neighbors were embarrassed to live on Joyce Street, the one with the ugly yellow house on the corner. We put in an offer and they were just glad to have someone take it. Slowly, this fixer upper became a beautiful home lovingly restored, we mowed it, planted grass and flowers and trees, fixed up the inside, put nice siding on it, and a new roof. There was a lot of work done on that house in the 24 years my family got to stay in it. It was home, but at the same time we knew it really wasn’t ours, it belonged to the Lord and we did everything we could to bring honor to that. I read in a personal devo the other day “There’s no place like home. Not for you. Not for Dorothy. And not for God. You do realize, don’t you, that He could choose anywhere to call home? The grandest palace. The loftiest mountain peak. The highest perch in the heavens. But He didn’t choose any of those. He chose a fixer-upper, a work in progress to lovingly restore. He patiently knocked until you answered, and then He moved in. Because the place God most loved to live is….in you.” For me it wasn’t about the house, it was the love shared in that home. My parents bought another fixer upper to retire in. Another town joke. My dad spent another 3 years lovingly restoring it to make it an acceptable place for them to live. It’s meager, it’s small, it’s nothing like the beautiful parsonage they left. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s now home. Not because of the building or the couches or the flowers that were planted, but because of the love of my family. Aren’t you glad He doesn’t choose the palace but chooses the fixer uppers? A lot of time and love is shared in the fixing. He’s not done yet! He’s lovingly restoring you and me. Let’s do all we can to bring honor and glory to Him in the home (our heart) that He chose, and allow Him to get to the nitty gritty and continue to make this fixer upper a beautiful home. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 1 John 4-16 In His service, Pastor Delinda
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AuthorNotes from the Staff @The Woods Archives
March 2023
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