J. Grant Swank, Jr.
September 5, 2003

I just returned from our second home, Cedar Grove, in Nova Scotia. It’s in the tiny quintessential village — white steepled church atop a hill in hamlet’s middle, general store, a few offices, and country road laced with homes that have sheltered there over a long, long time.

That cozy cluster is several minutes from the Bay of Fundy so that throughout each summer a gentle breeze gives greetings to our fields and lawns. Really no need for an air conditioner there. Truly.

In our home — well built for over a century of welcoming a myriad of guests and relatives — high windows with wavy panes were not framed for state of the art a/c units. No problem. Let the bay’s winds blow evenly and steadily.

As I looked out the kitchen window, I took in a lazy morning’s mist almost covering a few cows and a horse down the meadow a piece. In about an hour, Mr. Sun will begin his meandering across one acre and then another, playing games with spaces.

Chilly in early morning. Warm by noontime. Otherwise, a few showers tuck themselves in for good measure. No one complains. Any scene is brush stroked out of an oil painting by Pissarro.

"Ah, Bep and Anna are over there," I said aloud. They’re our new neighbors — house almost completed. A couple of fields separate us. They’re moving from the city to be "rural folk." Actually, they’re moving back to Anna’s childhood haunts. Bep, now a retired professor, grew up in Holland.

Within a few minutes I walked into their home-to-be. "Say, how’d you like a break? Come on over to our place; I’ve some refreshments ready just for you." Didn’t take much persuasion. Fine. It was time to catch up on news. Carol, Anna’s sister, joined us in our living room.

We're all Christians. We've trusted the Lord for His daily bread and always found Him faithful to His promises.

So it was that when our guests left, I whispered a prayer to God for His smile upon their property. "Lord, watch over their dwelling with angels’ care. Give to every one who walks through their door a blessing. Fill their futures with the Holy Spirit’s goodness. Take all our homes and turn them into sanctuaries of praise for we owe all that we have to You .. . ."

I was thinking of our planet — home to all of us. How we need heaven’s safety and love to roof the nations. I then turned to our cities — so many of them wrestling with drug misuse and loneliness.

They need refreshing fountains of water that only Jesus can provide. And our countrysides, once safe for children and values, are now intruded upon by everything that can be come upon any place else.

Our hamlets need a new vision of God’s hope and holiness.

I walked through every room in our Cedar Grove home. As I entered the room, scanned its invitation to rest, then left it, I asked God to scoop up that space for gospel good. I then walked out onto the large banistered front porch, bordered with lush bushes. "Lord, welcome friend or foe who walks here, offering friends your gift of faith and hedging in every foe against evil."

I meandered around the home, noting a ground hog munching on grass near mega-tall pine trees, then walked up the back steps onto a small porch from which clothes lines are strung. A barn and several sheds in the distance remind me of an Andrew Wyeth dream near the Kennetcook River. "Jesus, thank you so much for this beauty that embraces us in the morning and stands guard every night."

I was reminded of when Jesus, dying on Calvary, requested John the Beloved Disciple to put his arm around Mother Mary. The Word reads that John "took her to his own home" (John 19:27). How quaint. How needful.

Home.

What a powerful yet comforting word, that is, if it represents concern, understanding, and the Lord’s kindness. Sadly, some homes are but houses, and some are hardly that. Those shells speak of abuse and sadness, loneliness, and shame. The same with the Big House — planet Earth.

All the more then in this confused time of ours that we make certain that our homes are prayed over, surrendered to heaven for eternity’s hug, and tended to with daily wisdom.

Howis it where you live? Is home but a foretaste of heaven? It can be.