Sunday Stories

Life in a Borrowed Home
I think my mother took the concept of Christ folding His head covering (John 20:7) before He left the borrowed tomb out of context. She thought the message was: Don’t start your day without making your bed!

Throughout my childhood we lived in church parsonages. The roof over our head was not really ours to do with as we saw fit, but a home on loan to provide shelter and protection to the pastoral family. As Christ left the tomb in better shape than He found it, so would the parsonage family of Sandra Jones leave things better than they found them! I don’t think this was the point in the gospels at all, but I, at age 6, really had no theological grounds for argument, and so that’s the way things were.

Mom believed her home was a testimony of her respect for the church family and the tithes they brought into the storehouse for the perpetuation of the Lord’s work. It didn’t matter if she lived in a mansion or a mud hut, she was just passing through and those who came behind her would know her character by the home she kept.

The day mom found a black sheet of construction paper glued to a newly painted white wall will forever echo in the halls of my memory. My younger sister had decided to do a little redecorating in our bedroom and black on white seemed a great color scheme to a four year old. I remember most how glad I was that it was my sister’s artwork and not my own that had wrought such despair in my mother that particular afternoon. I was not above such behavior, it just wasn’t my day. Boy was mom mad!

Today it’s easy to laugh. We have “washable glue” and construction paper is as thin as onion skin. These innovations are terrific because the glue my sister used could hold the space station together and the paper really was durable enough to “construct” something. It took plenty of elbow grease and sand paper to clean up the mess, but you can be assured my mother didn’t leave it for someone else to find, nor did she just move the furniture to cover up the sins of her children. The redecoration/sin was dealt with appropriately and we moved on all the wiser and a little less free spirited with our decorating flair.

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The marks we leave while passing through are how others will know us and the God we serve. When my mom refused to leave any secrets for someone else to find, she was teaching me that no problem was going to get the best of her. She was tough enough to deal with anything and as her daughter, so was I. Some things really shock you. Some things break your heart, but even though they take some really hard work, things can be fixed and the darkness of sin can be turned to spotless white.

Mother never tried to hide real life behind the parsonage door and pretend it wasn’t there when she went to church. Mom was the same on both sides of the front door. Crisis did arrive, but the world didn’t end because we were not perfect. My mom took care of each moment and moved forward. Most of the time laughter led the way, but there were times when tears and sorrow shadowed our steps. My mom’s faith was consistent and persevering. It’s been said that integrity is what you have when no one is looking. Well, mom (and dad who you will hear about in future posts) had a great deal of integrity. When the front door on the parsonage shut, real life happened but the strength of truth and transparency saw us through and made us strong.