Our Home

January 21, 2009

This part of our journey for our family the last two and one half years has been unlike anything that I could have ever anticipated. I feel like this part of our journey ended with my children moving to Edmond to join me and Saundra and her children in our new home. The addition that we had built onto Saundra’s home was completed and approved to be occupied by the city of Edmond on January 16.

I still lay awake at night at times and ask the question, “Has this really happened?”

It happens to lots of people. My children were very blessed to be in the same family, in the same church, in the same home, and in the same school for so many years. All around us people were going thru changes like the ones we have recently experienced. We never thought it would happen to us. That is not being naïve. If you sat around anticipating what we have been thru, it would not be healthy.

As usual, as I look back, I can see how God has been faithful. He gave Debbie a better home and relieved her of her suffering. He gave us hope for a future in this life when we were hopeless. He gave us an amazing capacity to adapt and adjust to new circumstances and new people. He restored our smiles and our laughter. He restored our ability to dream. He has given us new vision for our lives.

Soon our house at 6301 S.W. 123rd will be empty. We leave behind the Wells Family House with mixed feelings. We love where we are going. We hate what we are leaving. Jeremiah, Mercy, and William were born after we moved there. Grace was just a few months old when we moved there in 1989. It is where most of my children learned how to ride a bike, shoot a basketball, and catch a football. We celebrated so many holidays there and hosted so many people. We had so much fun. We laughed together and we suffered together in that home. It is where Debbie’s mother took her final breath. It is where Debbie left us to go be with the Lord. Debbie often would say to me as we were driving up in the drive way, “I love our home.” We all feel the same way.

I never felt this way about a house before. I moved many times when I was growing up and I never felt the way I feel about this house. It is not just a house. It was our home.

What makes a house a home? A home is a place where you feel loved when you drive in the drive way and walk in the front door. It is a place where you know that even when you have only been gone a short time, you have been missed. It is a place where you see and spend time with the people you love most. It is a place where you know that you will be loved even when you have failed. It is a place that you can retreat from the world and find peace. It is the place that you want to return to no matter where you live or how long you have been gone.

It is for this reason that I can safely predict that in the years ahead my children will all make there way back to 6301 S.W. 123rd. They will pull up in front of the house and comment on what things have changed and what things have stayed the same. They will picture in their mind good times from the past. But most of all they will remember that that this was the place that they called home.

I hope that you have such a place to call home. If you don’t, I am sorry that you have not had this experience because of certain conditions in your family. You could feel cheated. I would encourage you not to feel that way. I assure you that if you are in Christ, whatever you have missed in this life will be much better in the next.

Heaven is the perfect home. Everything that we experienced at 6301 S.W. 123rd will be magnified. The best part about it is that we will never have to leave. We will never have to know again the pain of separation. Our permanent home will be so much better than what we have known.

It is O.K. to look back. We all do it. When we do we can smile and shed a tear all at the same time.

But to move forward, you have to look forward and believe the promises of God. Our heavenly home is such a great promise. Until that day!

Jerry Wells