Home: It's What He's Always Drawing Us To
Home: It's What He's Always Drawing Us To
This is a story about home.
Earlier this year, my brother told me about an experience that touched my heart.
He was visiting with a married couple who were doing some finishing work on his home.
This is the house constructed for my brother and his wife following the loss of their family home and its contents when Hurricane Harvey roared across south Texas, wreaking havoc for tens of thousands.
It is a miracle home—an answer to prayer made possible through a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help families who have suffered loss in natural disasters.
"My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places."
A few days before the home’s completion, my brother, Curtis, made his way across the yard from the trailer they were living in and over to the new house being built. {More than two years had passed since Hurricane Harvey.}
Inside the house, Curtis found this married couple and their young daughter working on a tiling project. He went over to say hello, and to thank them for their work.
Curtis asked them where they were from. As is often the case when English is the second language, they were shy and hesitant to respond. The daughter became their interpreter and answered, “Honduras.”
My brother smiled and said, “I visit your country a lot. What town did you live in?” “Progresso,” they said. Curtis responded, “Oh…I have been there many times! It is on the way to a place I travel often to visit a school in Yoro. Have you heard of the HOPE School?”
As Curtis continued to casually converse with them, the man and woman began to warm up to him. He took the time to encourage them by saying, “You are doing a good job and taking care of your family. What you earn here today will be worth much more than the lempiras you’d earn in Honduras.” {Lempiras = Honduran currency} They laughed a little, and then they both began to get emotional.
"By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches."
One of them asked Curtis if he spoke Spanish. “A little,” he said. As they continued to communicate, they discovered my brother is a minister. Suddenly, the gentleman began to weep, “Pastor, I am so sorry. I have not been attending church, but I have been thinking about it. I am going to start going, again!”
When my brother related this experience to me, I became emotional myself. This was, in part, because the Honduran people are incredibly special to me since I have also spent much time there. There was something more, though, that got to me.
The emphasis on home in my brother’s story was running through my mind.
Curtis and his wife had their home literally swept out from under them in the hurricane. They prayed and waited a long time before seeing their home rebuilt—the miracle home. {I must tell you they did this with such patience and grace, believing all along God was working it for their good.}
"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Today, they live in a new, two-bedroom home on the same family property where the original house was swept away by flood waters from the hurricane. During the building process, Curtis was able to share encouragement with the Honduran couple doing work in the new house.
It was a gentle conversation that ignited warm feelings of home in the hearts of a husband and wife. My brother’s acquaintance with their homeland touched a chord of longing and created connection. This led to memories of God and His love—a reminder of what they had neglected. It pointed them back home to Him.
Let us be reminded of this. God often uses the seemingly mundane moments of our daily lives to draw us to Himself. Our Creator and Maker desires that we live and remain at home with Him.
It's what He's always drawing us to.
"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?"