A year and a half ago Brian and I moved into our own home located in Northern, Kentucky. It is our first home that we have lived in and up to that point we had lived in one bedroom apartments and a sweet little parsonage that our church graciously allowed us to rent for a year. We weren’t necessarily looking for a house at the time as the church house was sufficient for our needs and allowed us to host our college students frequently. When we stumbled upon this home we began dreaming of all the things that would go on inside. We thought about the ability to host missionaries who would be home on furlough, hosting family gatherings, or having a small group worshipping with us in our living room. One thing we also giggled about was the hope for the sound of pitter patter feet walking up and down the steps, running through the living room and through the kitchen and dining room. We dreamed about that sound knowing it would never be a reality for us. We have hosted small groups, family gatherings, and missionaries in the past year. It has most definitely blessed us that we can share out of the abundance of what we have with others in the body of Christ.
Last night was our Beacon Family Christmas party. If you’re new to reading this weird blog of mine, my husband is the college leader at our church. I’m along for the ride in a marvelous way… I get to live life with college students and watch and marvel at the growth that God produces in them. The Beacon is the college group’s name. During the course of the evening, there was intense laughter (you know, the kind that makes your cheeks hurt…), a few tears shed as a few students came to us and opened up about some things that had been going on in their lives, and kids running around the house giggling and laughing in pure joy. It was at that moment I looked at my husband and marveled at God’s faithfulness. You see, the pitter patter of feet may not have come from tiny humans that we may have created ourselves, but it came out of a promise that I received from Isaiah 54, “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities”… I asked Brian, “Do you hear what I hear? That’s our dreams coming to life in this home”.
We ended the evening with a spontaneous worship session that lasted into the early hours of morning. We experienced Ephesians 3:14-21 as the Beacon Family: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehehnd with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpassess knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” That verse was read by one of our kids last night as we were worshipping.
Do you hear what I hear? That’s the sound of the glory of Christ Jesus reaching THIS generation. That’s the sound of pitter patter feet throughout a home filled with children.
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