My Father's House

Let's face it - we all like to dream. Most preschool aged children have imaginations that are crazy big, and it's easy to overhear them playing pretend; about house, construction, teacher, etc. When I was little, I remember dreaming a lot; about getting married, being a mom, and even at one point in life, being an architect so I spent my free time in class drawing sketches of houses on graph paper.

One dream I remember specifically that I had as a child was about heaven. People ask little kids about heaven a lot, maybe because their answers are cute, but if you ask me, I just think they have the best ideas. I remember picturing heaven as a city made entirely of gold, and it looked somewhat like Oz. There was also a St. Louis arch in that picture, don't ask me why.

A verse that aligns with this dream that I really like is John 14:2 "My father's house has many rooms, if that were not so, would I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you?" So basically, when I was little, I pretty much imagined living in a castle. Like the one at Disneyworld. As I've gotten older, it's been less about Disneyworld, and more about home. Like maybe my senior pictures are in the hallway, and the kitchen always has chocolate, and that really good corn flake chicken my mom makes. Another translation of this verse uses the term 'dwelling places' instead of rooms. I like this, too, because I picture that as one of those big comfy sectional couches that you can sleep comfortably on. God probably has a lot of those.

When Brenna died, I loved this verse (and still do) because it helped give me a visual of where she was. I don't exactly understand all of heaven, but I liked the thought of her having her own room and then an extra room for her clothes since she would definitely need it. I liked the thought of her being 'at home', with her picture in the hallway, and the idea of Jesus greeting her joyfully at the door when she arrived shortly after what I could only imagine was an incredibly painful death.

Being on a college campus one thing that I hear a lot is people who came from a religious home and later decide they want to leave it behind. Others might suggest that they 'love God but not religion', and then there are the people who are not religious at all. I have met people of all beliefs, nationalities, ethnicities, political affiliations, and much more during my time in college, which has expanded my daydream of what my father's house really contains.

I hope that it is like the buildings I've lived and found as home in during my weeks in Hong Kong. They are large, multi-story buildings that sit in large cities. They have many corridors, many rooms, and open areas similar to a courtyard. The malls that we walked through in Hong Kong are some of the most confusing places I've ever been. (ask my teammates, without them I'd still be wandering around inside those malls)  There are escalators, hallways, everything is in a bright color, and the thing that the malls and the schools have most in common is that I can't read a lot of the signage.

I hope that my Father's House is that way. I hope that it is large and confusing, but is filled with people I have known, people I have not known, and that I often feel like the place is too big for me. I hope that there is familiar things, like chocolate in the kitchen, and unfamiliar things, like that dish I had in Hong Kong this year that one of my friends identified had 'chicken blood' in it. I hope that they happen at the same time, like when we sing songs in church in Hong Kong in English and Cantonese. As I roam through the world I live in (which right now is mostly just a college campus in Manhattan, Kansas), it brings me joy and comfort to dream about the things, the people, and the events that take place now and for eternity in my Father's House.

One of the hardest things about a trip overseas is making friends and having no idea if you're ever going to see them again. This summer, I taught two classes of four year olds, and during VBS one day, they learned the song "Big House" (YouTube it, or attend Sunday School long enough and you'll hear it) and it brought tears to my eyes to think that even if I do not ever see them again in my lifetime, I get to see them there. Where it matters. In my Father's House - which has many rooms, and He has gone to prepare a place for us.

John 12:24 "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."