This is My Home

I picked up a brick for at least the fiftieth time. It was the end of a long day, and i was doing something charitable for those who suffered from the worst hurricane in U.S. history, but i couldn't help but not feel like my efforts were being a little wasted. I was picking up bricks from the destruction of a gateway that led to a gigantic ocean side house that withstood Hurricane Katrina and all of her rage. Meanwhile i knew that there were millions suffering from leveled (or even missing) homes, and here i am cleaning up a really rich man's driveway decoration that told everyone around him his (high) economic status.

The owner would come by every now and then and humbly thank us for doing something so mundane. He had a wheelbarrow and was working pretty hard himself but often seemed distracted. This often led me to believe he was lazy. I soon found out i was horribly, incredibly wrong.

As the man smoked a cigarette and called his golden retriever to him i detected a tear in his eye that escaped the shadow of his shaggy sun-bleached hair. A couple of us started asking some of the typical questions, "How long have you lived here?" "What was the hurricane like for you?"

He began to tell us how the only thing he had left was his dog and his FEMA trailor. I asked him "Well, what about your house over there?" as i pointed to the three story mansion. He gave a half hearted chuckle and said, "Oh, sir. That's not my house, this... THIS is my house."

What he pointed to was nothing. Literally, flat ground that revealed a couple cynder blocks, broken bricks and a barely recognizable foundation. The bricks we were picking up weren't to the driveway of the mansion, but of the walls of a small one story house that got swallowed up by the ocean.

I've never felt so shallow in my whole life. I walked away in shame and refused to even make eye contact with the man as i did my best to pick up even pebble sized portions of brick in honor of this man. And his dog.

I did overhear him say one more thing though before we left.

"This is my home. A lot of people are moving north, fleeing to the hills, looking for a new place to live. But Pass Christian is my home whether i have a house or not."

This man's circumstances did not deter his perseverance. My next blog (i'm attempting to blog on Sunday evenings now, but will be gone next Sunday because of Spring break, so the next one will be in two Sundays) i will go into the passage in Luke where one house stands against the flood and one house falls and what that means for us going forward. But until then, know that there are a few things we must place deep in our hearts for this coming season:

*perseverance can only be found in trying times
*there are no accidents, just opportunities
*no matter what structures stand or fail, know where your true home is