House on Parkside Drive

Many are aware that my family sold our home and moved to much smaller quarters. I wrote briefly about the move in “Moved.” A recent development has taken me by surprise. A little more than two weeks ago people began coming to me and asking if I had seen “what they did you your house.” At first I was alarmed because I was unaware of anything bad happening to the “condominimum” where we now reside. After a brief second of panic, I realized that my concerned friends were speaking about the house we sold.

It seems that, in spite of the buyer’s numerous pre-sale declarations otherwise, that the landscaping we left in place was not to taste. So the owner had it removed…all of it. The fifteen foot Bartlett pear tree, gone; the eight foot purple lilac, gone; seven foot crab apple, gone. Tulips, lambs ear, daffodils…you guessed it all gone and much more besides. I ran into my longtime next door neighbor by chance and he expressed how scandalized he was as he expected me to bear a grand offense to his new neighbor’s public repudiation of Michelle’s and my eight years of hard work and creativity and monetary investment.

I first honored my neighbor for his fine yard and repeated to him yet again that my family’s great objective was to not embarrass him since his yard was far superior in every way. I then told my former neighbor that the house and the yard was no longer mine. I don’t own it and have no control over it and am not even in a position to proffer an opinion as to what the new owner decides to do; the house on Parkside Drive is not my home.

It put me in mind of the reality in which I live every day. All around me folk are upset about this and the other thing, some get really exercised about how things “look.” After nearly thirty-five years of following Jesus, I finally am getting around to understanding that this world is not my home. I live here, but here is not my destination, nor is here where my treasure lies. My temporary home is on Lynn Lane where my family gathers to eat, sleep and shower. My permanent home is currently under construction and I will enjoy the fragrance of the flowering lilac, the beauty of the blooming crab apple and the shade of the Bartlett pear forever and ever. I look forward to home more and more every day and thus become less and less offended every day about things not being left the way I put them, my plans and efforts falling shy of perfection or my labors falling prey to someone else’s vision.

It is a good thing to have the assurance of hope-in-truth.

“For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.” (Hebrews 13:14, NLT)

By the way, I am convinced that the new owners investment in new landscaping will, in time, supersede my own and people will look at the house once again and say, “What a pretty place.”