The House Without Doors

[This is a memory, written about 3 years ago during a visit to our daughter's family in New York]

It was probably between 6 and 6:30 AM when I heard the music drift through the house. Perhaps "drift" is not the proper descriptive word. The encouraging hymn was sung with love and vigor - "Shall the Youth of Zion Falter?" I lay awake for a while and then dropped back into sleep. It had not been a particularly good rest up to this point, having begun with laying in bed, listening to the wailing of little Elijah - too tired, yet stubbornly resistant to the much needed sleep. This was the only life he knew - the house without doors.

This morning, the frantic, yet productive currents of activity swirled around me at about the same time as the music of yesterday morning. All were about everywhere looking for that book or article of clothing - a determined whirlwind of little bodies and older children grabbing and assembling what they needed for their journey to join the family activities later in the day in Pennsylvania. Other than the few plaintive cries of little Elijah, the undercurrent of conversation and connections was permeated with a love characteristic of this courageous family. The swirl of activity spoke the one message: It matters not that we live in an unfinished house - the physical circumstances that envelope us is but the current abode where we, as a family love, share, learn and grow together - feeling the hand of God shaping each precious life.

October 2016