Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. – Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. – Psalm 23:4, 6
While house hunting, we came across the nicest place and wonder of wonders, it was within our price range. It was white, had a wrap-around porch and nice yard. One requirement: On the back side of the property was a ram-shackle-down shack of a house. Whoever bought the nice house was responsible for the shack. What to do? We decided to buy.
The old shack was such an eyesore I didn’t even bother to check it out until some time after we had moved to our new home.
One day, I decided to explore it. As I opened the door, it fell off its broken hinges. I stumbled over boards and nails, cobwebs galore and broken down walls to a door on the south side. I fully expected to step outside, but to my surprise, it opened up to the most beautiful and spacious room I had ever laid eyes on.
Bright, freshly varnished knotty pine illumined it with a surreal brightness. There was a balcony on the east end of the room that overlooked the beauty. As I climbed the stairs to the balcony, turned to the left to open a door, I woke up.
The sun was streaming through my bedroom window with the promise of a new day ahead. Would this new day bring beauty and brightness to the journey ahead, or would the sun fade into oblivion, as it gave itself over to encroaching storm clouds? I could not tell, but I remembered the words of an old song: Back of the clouds, the sun is always shining.
Although I can never go back to that dream, aside from the memory of it, I can move forward to the ram-shackle-down-shacks ahead knowing that, even though the front door may fall off its hinges as I enter, with perseverance through the falling walls, old boards and nails and cobwebs galore, behind the door across the room lies the house of the Lord. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the remaining days of my life and once through that door, I will dwell in that house forever.
In the book, The Perils and Parables of Pastor Preechet, the family moves out of a door in California into a new one in North Carolina. A new day is dawning, but what broken hinges, fallen walls and nails and cobwebs lie ahead?
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