Walls Give Up Your Laughter
After living in our ‘little bit of paradise” home, we are
going to move. The papers will be signed in a day or two, and then our home of
twenty years will belong to someone else. Our reasoning is proper in selling it,
though very hard to hear those words we spoke to ourselves. “We are getting too
old to take care of the grounds and the ever-present maintenance on the aging
house.” So as I go from room to room, reminiscing about the glorious times we
had here, “I find myself crying for times passed.
Walls, I plead, give up your laughter. I know you have noted
each laugh around a card game; you have preserved the glorious enjoyment from
watching happy grandkids playing with cousins and, of course, the pleasure of new
baby giggles. Remember the contentment we found here within the walls that
surround us. Walls do not hoard within your timbers, nails and paint the
precious memories that made this old house a home.
Is there a moving box big enough to hold them all? How can a
mere box hold the gentleness of a breeze or the closeness of a walk to “The
south forty,” as Larry dubbed the grassy pasture that we gazed at from our
bench? How do you pack away sorrow? Is there any way to gather grief? Does the
laughter of loved ones who have passed still echo within the confines of these
walls? Can the tears be noted that fell to the floor as the Lord counted each
one and held us through many storms of life? Yes, walls give up the tenderness
of these memories, give up the gentle moments even now as we remember.
As I moved from room to room remembering, the love that
abides here, I concluded that these walls have heard and seen laughter, but so
too has my grateful heart.
The old bridge that brought love to our door carried stores
of the stuff that memories are made laughter, tears, and praise for the
Precious Lord that allowed these walls to contain it all.
