There is a location on our evening walk where the wind blows the leaves into a pile. Each night while my dog walks around the pile I shuffle my feet through it making as much of a mess as possible. Some nights I even turn around and do it again. My wife nailed it when she said, “Are you being a little boy again?” I think somewhere in heaven there is a secret location with a workbench, saws, hammers, planes, sawdust, finished and unfinished products. Guess who frequents it. I doubt if we will be invited in. This is special.
Going back to special places can be risky. We have memories of how something was and we risk it not being that way when we return. Real estate developers, highway construction, growth or decay of trees and painters can transform a place so that it is little like we recall. Then it is spoiled for us. As I race down an interstate highway I often wonder what farms, barns, houses, special places are no more because of Eminent Domain and our rush to go somewhere. When people lose their homes because of fire or flood I feel so sorry if they lost their pictures. Couches and chairs can be replaced but not pictures filled with memories of bringing home those babies and watching them take their first steps.
John 14 is intriguing. Could it be that those homes uniquely prepared for us are filled with photo albums, special pets, an old train set, a pair of worn-out sneakers? Don’t quickly count it out. I Corinthians 2:9 does say, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived — the things God has prepared for those who love him.”
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 22, 2013
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St.Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org