Home

Our house has been emptier this week and feeling more like just a house then home.  It's never the same when he's not here to fill in the empty spaces, balance me out and lay beside me at night.  But he's back and we all laid in a jumbled pile this morning as if he'd been gone for weeks, not just 4 days.  A moment to savor, all of us together; my house feels like home again when we're all together.

I just finished reading what is certainly the best book I've read in 2011 (and I've read some good ones like this and this.)  Somewhere More Holy by Tony Woodlief has made me rethink what home is and how it is created and the sacredness of it.  I cried and I laughed and I re-read sentences that were too powerful to absorb in just one take.  Room by room, the author tells his story and his family's journey and how he has come to see the holiness all around us, if only we would open our eyes to see.  Beauty and pain, hope and despair, peace and angst...all of life lived out inside these four walls, and He is in the midst of every moment.

"This book is the story of how we reclaim the things that are lost. It's also the story of a how a home can become sacred, and how in the process it can sanctify us as well...Home is more than a place where we eat and sleep; it is where we learn grace, where we glimpse heaven.  Is is where we find or lose God, or perhaps where He finds us if we will only be still long enough to listen for Him."

It is not an easy read (have a kleenex nearby), but one that will challenge how you think about your home. I can't recommend it highly enough.