From the Inside Out

From the outside, it’s just another house. Nothing makes it stand out from all the others on just another street where lots of suburban commuters, strangers to each other, spend the night. What’s special is something seen only from the inside out. Memories are in every room, at every turn, on every wall, where life happened in ways both big and small, where a house became a home.

Our boys were eight and eleven when we first moved in. They still slept in bunk beds with Batman sheets. When they needed their separate space and plain sheets, my office became another bedroom. I’ve watched the north pasture since from another window, as it changed colors with the seasons, while sermons, planted as seedlings, grew to maturity.

There’s the dining room. We each had our place sharing countless meals while talking about homework, grades and how the day went. Where the walls echo with groans when dad punned poorly. There’s the street outside the dining room window where the nameless redheaded lady still rides her bike trying to lose weight every summer. It’s not working.

There’s the bedroom where we gathered at night to pray and share lots of midnight laughs when neither of us could sleep. Where tears were shed when the phone call came, "Your dad just died."

There’s the living room, where the cat threw up right in the middle of a group of folks from church. Nancy screamed. I laughed. We both have a memory we can’t forget.

The lawn finally looks good, three years after we overdid the Roundup and nuked the whole thing, Agent Orange-like. Recently, we saw the guy at Lowe’s who gave us the lawn advice. He’s selling carpet now, and our yard couldn’t be happier.

We were newlyweds, six weeks into the adventure of a lifetime, when we first unlocked the door. Nine years down the road together, we’ll lock the door one last time and hand the keys to someone else. Then, we’ll unlock the door to another house that will become a home, from the inside out.

After all, it’s not the house that makes the home or the family. It’s what happens from the inside out that does, the stuff that goes and stays with you no matter where you live.