The House is Empty of All but Memories

The house is empty.

In January of 2012, Robyn and I bought our first home. We had been married for 12 years and lived in 9 different apartments. A year at a Bible College where we met. A year in a suburb where I was an Intern Youth Pastor. And then the rest of the time in the city of the Bible College where I finished my schooling and now teach. That home was more than just a home; it was an answer to prayer.

An Answered Prayer

In 2007 and 2008, the housing economy was too inflated, and the prices all bottomed out. Many people went upside down in their mortgages. Homes defaulted. It was a tough time. And while home prices continued to fall, my late wife and I didn’t have money to buy a house. But God had been changing our hearts regarding having kids (that story could be a whole separate blog post on its own) and a house was high on our prayer list. We looked for homes (and put in a few offers on foreclosed homes) but found that we just didn’t have the money. Not on a student/window cleaner’s and administrative assistant’s pay.

But then our realtor called. It was November of 2011, and a new home had just come available. It was going to be listed in the next few days, but my realtor hoped to get us in first to make a quick offer. We almost bought the house sight unseen. But I was able to get away from my job and so was Robyn, and so we toured that little home in the afternoon.

It was a little more than we could afford to pay, but not by much. We agreed to buy the house that day and then took possession in January of 2012. The first month we lived there we unfolded cardboard boxes and taped them up to the windows as makeshift curtains. We had to save a month or two to be able to buy blinds for the main rooms. Later that year we would finish the rest of the windows. But we didn’t mind. We had no shared walls and a yard for the first time of our entire marriage! And more than that, we had room to grow a family. We could not have been happier.

A Collection of Memories

Over the years the home collected as many memories as it collected stuff into all its storage locations! We brought home both our kids from the hospital in that home. They took their first steps and learned to play their first instrument (a piano we had gotten free from old friends from a previous church we attended). We celebrated our first Christmas as a family of 3 and then 4. We made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and royal icing, and we made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. I came home from my first semester teaching full time and my wife came home to be a full-time mother in that house. My dad built a playset for the kids, and they dug holes in the entire yard. One time Evan came in exclaiming he found something under the ground. He had dug down 6” and uncovered the internet cable. Thankfully he didn’t break it, and we could still stream our episode of Thomas the Train that night!

But other memories live in that home for me. The night Robyn had a pseudo heart attack that would reveal her first cancer in 2019. She was in that bed almost 24/7 during those 6 months of treatment. We spent hours sitting on that bed together as a family of four while watching videos or playing games together. Then there was her recovery and the next three years of life as we watched the kids grow like weeds. There is the spot on the wall where she hit her head during her second cancer in 2023. She had fallen backwards attempting to “crutch” down the stairs to her next radiation treatment. We didn’t realize it, but that was the beginning of her paralysis from the waist down. It was so perfectly logical based on her tumor locations. And yet, in the hustle and bustle and fears of a terminal diagnosis, it took us completely by surprise.

Next are the memories of being a family of three for a time. My life as a widower. Taking the kids out to eat for so many meals because I came home from work and didn’t have it in me to cook some food. The many nights spent crying on the couch after the kids went to bed. Then the many nights spent working out because I just needed to do something that was the opposite of crying (which ended up being very good for my health). The many nights of playing tree golf (our own little variation on disc golf in our corner lot). Riding bikes. Adventure walks. So many memories.

Two More Memories

Two more memories stand out. First, the front stoop was a regular spot of mine for those months of fear and grief. Many a night while Robyn was in hospice and her sister was with her overnights, I would be at home with the kids. They would be in bed, and I was on the front stoop in the dark, sipping a carbonated fruit drink and crying and praying. In the spring I would return to the stoop as the temps warmed, but this time as a widower. Friends came to visit me on that stoop many times. A faithful friend gave me the most loving rebuke while we sat on that stoop next to my mini firepit. It takes a lot to tell a guy – who’s wife is in hospice – that you see a sin. But faithful friends wound you and then stand there with you while you recover. But I had many visitors to that stoop. I had a two friends stop down from other states and sit around the fire with me. My good buddy Tim came over more times than I can recall.

Second, I remember my first phone call to Melissa while I lived in that house. I put the kids to bed one night and then texted her pastor to get her number. I had sought lots and lots of wise counsel leading up to that. I sat at my desk in my basement office while the kids slept upstairs. The call was supposed to be 10 minutes long, just long enough to introduce myself and ask if she’d like to chat sometime in the future. She had no plans that night and we talked for two and a half hours. After 45 minutes, I knew this was going to work. We talked on the phone a lot in those days. We kept a reasonable policy of not being in the house alone. So, if the kids weren’t awake and in the room with us, we kept our conversations to the phone. Except the few times that we talked and sat on the front stoop. Many nights I remember standing on that stoop and waving goodbye to Melissa as she left after a visit. Then I’d set a while and talk to God. I had a lot of conversations with Him, sitting on that stoop.

New and Old Memories

But the house is finally cleaned out. I have a few things left in the garage, but the new owner has graciously allowed me to leave them for a few more weeks. They arrive soon and will be moving in and making memories of their own. A newly married couple, him attending the seminary at my school. He an old friend from my last church. I’m excited to see how God is going to bless them in this new home.

I’ll come back to get those last few items in the garage in the next couple weeks. But the memories, well, those will both come with me and stay with the house. I can’t really take them out, but I can take them with me. And if I find one day that I can’t seem to remember them, I’m sure a drive by that old house will be more than enough to bring them back to mind.

We are people of places. A placed people. We may move around for a time. But we all land somewhere. And one day we wake up and find that this place has become our home and that we aren’t ready to leave. That’s not bad. I think that’s how we were made. God made us a garden in the beginning. Being cast out wasn’t the design. But one day we will come home to our true home. In that place we will finally be true citizens and not just sojourners and ambassadors. We will have a home, and we will be at home. And that home will be our forever home.

What will that place be like? I don’t fully know (though the Bible gives us some ideas). But I know that Robyn knows. And my friend James’ son knows. And Tim’s son knows. And Pete’s late wife knows. And Jule knows. Jeff’s mom knows. And Paul, and Peter, and James, and John all know.

And one day, I will know. And all who know Jesus and love His appearing will know.

Until then, places will bring us the joys and sorrows of rooted memories. The events of our lives are colored by the smell and sound of those places. Those wide spaces or those crammed quarters ended up being part of the story, not just the setting. The old home or new build was a character, not just the background. And I suppose this is a good thing. Because new homes and new neighborhoods seldom feel like an old friend as we make our first acquaintance. But in time we get to know the place and it becomes a bit like an old friend.

Setting Your Mind of Things Above:

Revelation 21:1–4

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Matthew 6:19–21

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

Hebrews 11:14–16

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

2 Corinthians 5:1–8

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.