A few years after my parents married, (the same year I was born, 1941), Mom and Dad bought the house I was raised in along with my older sister and younger brother. It was Mom and Dad’s lifelong home.
My mom passed to be with the Lord in 1995, and my dad went to be with her in 2004. The house was sold a few months later. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to do a walk-through in our Home Sweet Home in Claycomo, Missouri. I must tell you, it was just that … a house. The structure was home when we were all living there together. It was home because Mom and Dad were there — they made it a home. Our home. But, this time when I walked through it, I was aware that it wasn’t the same … it was empty of Mom and Dad and my brother and sister, and I was a stranger in my family house. It was empty of love and voices. It was empty … just a house, a building with walls … nothing seemed the same.
It was then that I more fully realized the cliché that “an empty house is not a home.” A house becomes a home when people move in. When people move in, the empty house takes on a life of it’s own. Love begins to fill the house turning it into “home,” a place for love, a place for happiness and tears, a place where memories are made and lives revered.
Our body is home for our soul — a temporary dwelling place. When we are born-again God moves in with us and it is then that our life takes on new meaning and purpose. Soul-love is the sweet love that we shared together as a family.
Spirit-love is what every heart needs and what Christ offers to anyone who will open their heart-door to Him … open your heart and God will come in. Give Christ a Home in your heart. Open your heart-door, He will come in. The Lord, dwelling in the believer, gives life, love, hope, direction, happiness, peace, assurance and meaning. Yes, the Lord in us gives our life meaning and a future — an eternal future.
Just as family gives life to a house, the Lord gives life to the soul.
Do you live in an empty house or a home filled with Love?
— C. S. Craig