Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am always trying to pawn my guest room off on anyone and everyone who wants to stay. I have what I like to call an entire "guest wing", which is really just another bedroom and bathroom that is on the other side of our one story home.
Over the last few months I have had all kinds of people come and stay in my guest wing. A brokenhearted man who was in the middle of a divorce. A Yosemite National Park high camp counselor who was used to sleeping under the stars, and consequently slept on top of the linens and sheets I washed for him. As well as a couple of my giggly best friends, and of course my family has stayed on occasion.
Today I spent the majority of the afternoon getting the guest room ready for another visitor. But this time I wanted to make sure the room was an inviting place. I wanted it to feel like a home away from home. I wanted it to be perfect for one of the people that I love the most in my life, my mother.
This meant the special details must be attended to. And not because I need to impress her, quite the opposite. If I didn't clean the sheets, gave her one flat pillow, and made her sleep on a mattress in the middle of a bare-walled room, she wouldn't even whisper a complaint. Instead, if I know my mom as well as I think I do, she would paint the walls, buy me a bed frame, hang up some art, and fleece the room with yummy smelling candles, as a "thank you" for having her stay. She is just that way, extremely giving and not at all pretentious.
Lucky for her, I do care about the guest quarters very much and so in preparation for her visit I vacuumed, washed the linens with an expensive lavender laundry detergent, and I lit candles in preparation. I even went to TJ Maxx, and bought a new shelf with a beautiful silver tree, as hanging wall art.
I made the bed with hot sheets right out of the dryer and folded them down like in a Pottery Barn magazine so that the pattern was visible and smooth. I filled a gift bag with a book I bought her and placed it on the center of the bed.
I opened up the blinds which ushered in the mute blanket of purple-tinged, rainy day light- which had a calming effect on the space. The rain was dripping in between the branches of our backyard tree. Its color is now a bright pop of Kelly green since its spring. It's vibrancy stretches out right in front of the guest room window, making the room seem more alive. Refreshing.
I watched a single pearl of rain as it fell haphazardly through the branches. It plunked out natural notes with each fall, much like a chromatic scale, creating an inaudible yet visible scale of sound on each leaf it splashed against. The high notes at the top of the tree were followed by the mid range and then finished out with the baritone pitch of the fat plonks on the bottom bough.
I turned around to look at the room. I was very proud of it. It looked like it could be in an issue of it's own, like a perfectly staged bed and breakfast. The accent lights were gooey and comforting, the smells were a mix of spice and spring, and the carpet was soft and clean.
I felt an excitement rise in my heart, and a swelling of my soul. I always get this way when my mom gets to come down from Seattle and spend time with me. I blew out the candles and stole one more glance at the room before leaving it.
I have gone back into the room a few more times since I spruced it up. Each time I notice how eager the room is for someone to be in it. The clean floor is just begging for a messy suitcase, the perfect bedspread is crying out for a wrinkle, or a stray sock. The bed side table is requesting a half drank glass of water, and the closet is clamoring for some clothes to fill the empty hangers.
And then it dawned on me. This must be what our rooms in heaven look like. Prepared and waiting, even the walls wait with bated breath in anticipation for our arrival. The tree outside of the window is just a shrub, but grows with each year of our life that is lived. So by the time we open the shades, we will see a full grown version of our family tree. In the blossom of spring.
And I can just imagine God pacing back and forth across the room. Sitting on the bed, running his hands across the pattern in the fabrics. Fixing an off kilter picture on the wall, painting the weather outside to match the cadence of calmness so that after our long journey we can finally feel what it means to truly rest. He nervously taps his boot against the floor, watching the second hand on the clock creep its way closer to our meeting. He has gifts on the bed, the finest linens on the bed and a bottle of champagne chilling on ice.
God gets a bad rap as the one who wrecks havoc on the world, kills people in violent storms, and leaves millions to their own starvation and sickness, but imagine a world where all the imperfections of humanity were eradicated, and all that was left was simply love. A tree that was nothing but leaves of love sewn together from lifetimes of hard journeys and joyous victories.
To be honest, I don't get the guest room this spiffed up for just anyone. I do of course clean the sheets and put a candle or two in there, but I don't spend as much energy as I did for other guests as I do for my mom. This is only because I know my mom so very well, and I really want to make this place nice for her.
We share DNA, we share a lifetime of memories, and we have shared a million pee-in-your-pants laughs, we are best friends.
That is what it is like to be a believer.
To have that kind of love and affection and connection with Jesus, and vice versa.
Sound freakish? Intangible as it is, the entire dynamic of the relational exchange is the same. If you allow yourself to step outside of the boundary of reality, which is made up of man made institutions, theory and relativity it is possible to imagine such a place. And if we can leave behind our broken perceptions of family which are unfortunately drawn by fathers who abused us, and one that is marred by the addictions that stole our mothers, and by the jealousy which has robbed us of true friendship- we can imagine a home that we actually want to go to. If we can peer into the paradigm of what is actual truth and not just what is perceived to be true- we can begin to see the outline of a bedroom door in the distance. One that holds no fear, nothing but acceptance.
God says he loves us like nobody can ever love us. He loves deeper than we are capable of. This isn't the type of Hallmark love, that is commercialized and watered down to empty words and palsy poetry. It is a love that bleeds, that is hard to watch, that is insane, and yet gentle.
My little guest room is nothing fancy, but it is a little slice of heaven in the sense that my human desire to serve, prepare, and provide for is demonstrated in the tender care that I put into that 10x10 room. That desire is from the original composer of comfort.
Until then, remember there is someone who desperately misses you and is waiting for you, even when you feel like a stranger in your own home. Or like most of us, utterly alone.
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