This House Has a Heartbeat
Every year in early December I watch Christmas with the Kranks. It always leaves me with an overwhelming urge to have a party. To invite all the random people like the Kranks did and to watch friendships form before my eyes. You know, the lady from the tanning salon and the guy who plays Santa at the corner grocery, along with the neighbors who have been nothing more than a casual wave up til now.
In past years when I’ve followed through on the party urge I’ve compromised and stuck to inviting people who are already friends. It’s much more comfortable that way. But on a walk a few weeks ago it suddenly hit me there are people on our block I’ve never even had a conversation with.
I casually mentioned the idea of hosting a Christmas block party, a plan that would have almost certainly fallen by the wayside except for my daughter-in-law, who is a professional event planner and who happens to live in the neighborhood. She quickly jumped on it and before I could say hold your horses she had designed and printed off a handful of party invitations with a date and time so at that point I was committed. This is what Donald Miller calls an inciting incident.
As our family continues to shift and expand, the house seems to shift and expand along with us in its capacity to hold our memories and our dreams.
I taped invitations to all the front doors on my block and immediately surrounding it, wondering all the while if anyone would show up. But you know what, they did! Saturday night our house filled up with lovely neighbors who are now friends. People who were excited to get to know each other and grateful for the invite.
And now my home feels somehow warmer and richer after being filled to the brim with all this life. I’ve noticed this over the years. When we first moved in almost 12 years ago the house felt dark and empty and lifeless. But almost instantly God filled these walls with people. Lots and lots of people over these dozen years. In the beginning it filled up with 20-somethings, always hungry for food and conversation and sometimes a place to crash for the night. One of these 20-somethings became our son-in-law and now there are two bustling little boys filling these rooms with giggles and dancing and Storybots and artwork. Another became a daughter-in-law and more friends became family. As our family continues to shift and expand, the house seems to shift and expand along with us in its capacity to hold our memories and our dreams.
Our homes, though inanimate structures made of sticks and stones, carry life and breath within them. In a way they’re a lot like living organisms. They have personality. They feed on the generosity and warmth of the people who care for them. And they evolve and conform over the years to meet our changing needs as children grow, leave and return with more children.
Pastor Tim Keller says your work is God’s way of loving the world through you. I would say the same about our homes. Your home can be a tangible evidence of a loving Father and a vibrant picture of God compelling and inviting others to come closer.
As I walked through the house the morning after the party, throwing away the left-behind cocktail napkins and repositioning furniture, my heart felt so full. As if the house itself was pleased. One more memory to treasure along with hundreds of others that live in these walls.
All the game nights and Saturday pancake breakfasts and guitars around the fire pit, grandson snuggles on the couch and infinite conversations around the kitchen island, these moments pile one on top of another to build something that cannot be torn down.
There’s a heartbeat in this home. I feel it in my bones, as if it has a soul that wraps my soul in a giant bear hug and tells me I’m home. I belong. Which is how I want every single person to feel who ever walks through these doors.
Merry Christmas, friends! May your home be filled to the brim with the peace and joy of our Savior!
