Walls and Roofs

"Change is bad."
~My husband

"I do not mind {most} change"
-Me

This afternoon we will officially no longer be owners of our former home. We will sign over the house along the street in which we discovered neighbors who have become family. That will never change. I hope she comes to know what a fabulous little plot of earth she choose to call home...or at least the people surrounding it that make it so. Maybe she will even continue the Labor Day picnic tradition. Or bring marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey bars across the street on July 4th, when everyone gathers on the small patch of grass that was Danny's to see the fireworks display that shoots off a few blocks away at the local high school. If she's wise enough to open her life up to those around her, she'll find that there is a security guard, a kind soul who would go into the house to see if she really did unplug the iron before she left and that the children love sidewalk chalk.

***Sigh***


Our soon to be former home was built in the 1920's, but it's hard to imagine that anyone else lived there but us. And yet...those wall have seen generations of big (& itsy bitsy) brothers, weary mothers, fix-it fathers and screeching sisters.

The walls that watched while an 8 month pregnant with twins woman downs yet another nightly bowl of cereal. They could tell you that her belly served as a feeding trough many a time. (And that the Martha Stewart LIVING magazine was merely a prop. Like she had time to read it! Ha!)

They witnessed the homecoming of newborns and all the
celebrations of the birthdays that followed. If you were to ask, they would whisper that the mother had to dig long and hard in the 'junk drawer' to find that previously used number "1" candle for on top of the cake that the papa bought from Giant on his way home from work that day.
The backyard held many a cook-out...I never have seen ourselves as "entertaining guests", but rather just throwing a few extra (paper)plates on the table.


Moving can be a bittersweet thing. But what's 7 years when compared to 46? That is how long the previous owners of our home, Luke and Collette lived here. Their feelings must have run significantly deeper when they saw this sign on the front of their home.


Wherever we dwell, it is the people that make it home. Truly.
That we have a roof over our heads is more than thousands upon thousands of people can say (with little or no confidence) when they woke up this morning. What roof it is, where it's at and what kind of neighborhood it's in makes little difference--it's how we live while under it's shadow and the gratitude in our hearts as we come and go from it that matters.

Thank you God for the roof of our past, and for the one you have kindly provided for us today.