On That Gleaming White Front Porch

In my last post, I shared a couple articles about what may take place down the road in the U.S.. Things which would change Life As We Know It. And it could happen--you never know. (Just consider all the things which have happened since 9/11/01 which we, years ago, believed could never happen.)

But in the meantime, I am going to do my best to finish well. My life, that is. I'm going to keep painting the walls of my house and caring for Tom and feeding our cats and visiting with Naomi in her new apartment. I want to keep writing in this blog and encouraging people by email and snail mail and taking walks and rearranging the flowers in my garden each year.

And I want to keep building the peaceful place of refuge inside me. That place where I not only run to God when things fall apart, but where I sit with Him when things are going very right. In the days ahead, that may become a more real home to me than the one whose walls I am painting now. There is a peaceful place inside me, a home of sorts which I carry with me wherever I go, rather like a turtle with his home on his back, yet mine is built on the inside.

I watch all these people who have been displaced by winds of a hurricane and I wonder how many carry a peaceful home within them, too. It's available to everyone, but it's extremely hard to add onto the house and make it stronger in the middle of a huge storm. Oh, I suppose you could nail some boards up in the middle of swirling rain, but how much better it would have been to have built the house of your heart during days of smaller winds. During the days when the biggest problems you had were the broken washing machine, the lost friendship or the empty bank account.

When I am sitting on white shiny porches with friends in Heaven, I want to look back to my life here and be glad for the days I enjoyed God, even when nothing much was going right. As we talk and rock in our chairs, I want to be able to laugh from my soul about the times I took out to have fun--instead of regretting that I spent that time feeling offended or morose or afraid. I want to feel grateful in Heaven that I was grateful here on Earth for what God gave me. I want to know that I noticed everything God wanted me to notice and that I did not miss anything. While on that porch, I want to be sitting next to people I helped and shared with while we still lived down here.

Basically, I don't want to get entangled with the bitterness and blame-throwing which is swirling all around me everywhere I look, tempting me to waste these Last Days because I allowed myself to get pulled down in the suction of negativity. I'll be sitting on that sunny front porch in Heaven someday and I want some good, godly memories to think about while I am rocking there.