Going Home

A couple of months ago, Lydia was invited to a birthday party. The birthday girl and Lydia have become good friends this year in Bible Study Fellowship, thus the invitation to the party.

The day of the party arrived and Lydia could hardly contain her excitement. When we got to the party, the little girls were invited to have their fingernails painted. The moms chatted while the girls were beautified. One mom mentioned that before she had six kids, she was a dental assistant. Being a daughter of a dentist, my curiosity was piqued and I asked her the name of the dentist for whom she had worked. I went on to tell her that my dad had been the dentist in my home town for twenty years.

At that moment, the hostess of the party, Tamara, gasped and said, "Melissa! I live in your old house!" Yep, that's right. The house I grew up in. Well, I was flabbergasted, to say the least. I asked her a million questions about the house, the neighbors and the town. Then I hinted (heavily) that I'd love to see the house again and have my kids see it, too. I was shameless, really. Anyway, a couple of weeks later Tamara asked if we'd like to come and see the house sometime and of course I said, "Absolutely!"

So the Sunday before last our whole family made the forty five minute trip to the little town in which I grew up. Things hadn't changed much. There's still no stop light and there's still only one grocery store. Tamara graciously let us tour the house and the yard (it had been twelve years since I'd seen it). Not much had changed there, either. The wall paper was still the same in the kitchen (remember when you hung that, Dad?), the bathroom fixtures were still lemon yellow and avocado green and Tamara said the deck out back was still great for sunbathing.

As we walked from room to room, I told the kids about who slept in which room and who took a bath in the fireplace once. It was great fun. Then Tamara took a picture of all of us in front of the house. She truly showed me and my family Christian love that day--especially since she and her family were in the midst of moving from my old house to a bigger house just outside of town.
As we drove out of town, I couldn't help but reflect on the big dreams I had when I left that house to go to college. I had every intention of becoming a reporter for the NY Times or WA Post. Wow, did God have other plans. If you would have told me twenty years ago that I'd one day stand in front of that house with my wonderful husband and brood of six kids, I'd have laughed long and hard and pretty sarcastically, too. Thank you, Lord for giving me the desires of my heart, the desires I never knew I had until you gave them to me.