The House That Built Me

Let me tell you about the house that built me.  It was old. Drafty. And smelled of farm on a sweltering day.  There was dirt on the floor as you walked in that front porch. The porcelain kitchen sink was often deluged with something fresh from the garden in the summer.  In winter, the scolding hot water where Nana did dishes seared my skin, but her love healed my heart and hurts.  The worn green carpet may have been rough to touch, but it was warmth and security in this child's life.  A place to rest my weary soul, nestled under layers of blankets handmade by the same hard working farm hands that labored in the milk house. There was a simple porcelain, again, tub that made for gleeful play for a handful of girls at bath time.  Putting on the baby powder scent afterward lavished my skin like God's grace is lavished upon me.  Bobby pins in a tin are a reminder of Nana getting "dolled up with pin curls", as if she wasn't one of the most beautiful people I had ever known.
I have already said I was one for tears, and my kin often remind me of there frequent trickling, staining my cheeks.  Sometimes I wonder, as a child, if I could have expressed what all those tears meant, that they wouldn't have been so misunderstood.
But in the mist of grief as a child, of feeling as I didn't fit in that farmhouse, the stark reality is that that was what built me.  It is me.  I remember the most joyful of moments being wooed to sleep by the warm sun in the back of Papa's tractor.  That sun and Papa were the reminder of faithfulness in what seemed to be a broken childhood.  Riding in the feed barrel as Papa pushed it down the center aisle in the barn, sustaining the cows need for nourishment symbolized how he would nourish us physically and emotionally and reminds me of what my God does for my soul and body.  Papa's bedroom would chill my growing body, but jumping into his bed and resting by his side brought comfort that I desire to now give to others. Coffee from a saucer, sitting on his bold, strong lap assured me that strength would come each day. I never could have imagined the lessons about life that man's quiet and rare words would breathe into my soul.  Life giving words that shape me.  That house was simple, as were the people who inhabited it.  Oh that I can build that simplicity for myself and those I call my own.  Let nothing of this earth satisfy me but my God.  May He establish the work of my hands, and the house that builds my little loves be nothing less than a holy firmament.  A trusted gift of what is good and beautiful, healing and soulful.