Christian Author and Speaker
Daddy and Mama bought the big yellow house when I was 13 months old. Surrounded by red barns, white board fences, chicken coops, and corn cribs, the house sat on 80 acres of fields, pastures, and woods, bordering a creek. They paid $10,000 for it. Grandpa Nutt said they’d never live to see it paid! But my Grandpa was wrong.
It doesn’t look like much. And to most, it probably isn’t much. Just a soap dish, from K-Mart, one might assume. Probably purchased in the 50’s. Pink plastic with removable drainer. The gold trim of its crown nearly worn from years of scouring with Comet Cleanser. At first glance, one might easily overlook the esteemed position it held through the years.
Still in Arizona, we continued traveling west on Route 66 (literally I-40, but I like to know it’s as close to the original Mother Road as we can get!), hoping to reach Grants, New Mexico before dark.
The young wife trimmed a couple inches from the end of the whole ham before baking it in the large roasting pan. Every time. Years of this habit passed.
One day a friend asked, “Why do you do this?”
Not the park, of course! But not being able to visit the park – that’s what was so disappointing.
It was hot! 100 degrees plus all day long.
How many beans could a woodchuck eat if a woodchuck could eat beans?
Here’s the answer to that age-old question (well, to a similar age-old question!):
Passersby stopped their cars. Some actually drove in the big circle driveway, walked up the steps to the porch, and knocked on the kitchen door.
“May we look at your flower garden?” they asked.
(You’ll hear waterfall in addition to the music on this post. If it’s distracting, feel free to mute either as you read.)
When I became a Christian, I became a new person in spirit. Naturally, my spirit yearns to shelter in the comfort and protection of the Father. The Psalmist refers to that place of shelter as the secret place of the Most High God, El Elyon. (Psalm 91:1) And when we dwell, actually reside, in that secret place, we find rest. Rest of mind – peace – assurance. Isn’t this kind of rest what we really want? I do.
Some places on this earth, even right here in Michigan, would make amazing secret places.
The vibrant young couple one day became old. It wasn’t sudden, but it seemed sudden.
The years between the young and the old seemed to have passed quickly – sometimes in a moment’s time. The memories were sweet and good, yet sometimes sad. It was the sad memories that caused the aging, as is true of most.
