Just before the storm broke, we heard a whimpering at the door. Opening it, my husband and I saw a small black puppy sitting on the step up to our RV. The Texas sky thundered and the rain began; we brought the dog inside.
Steven and I had only been married a few months, and although we were already living at Community First! Village, the property was still mostly a construction site. Our RV was perched on the edge of a parking lot, and we were the only people yet living on the 27-acres.
When we brought the dog inside, we gave him some water and food. He drank the water and then curled up on our rug and when to sleep. He slept for nearly 48 hours, rising only once or twice to relieve himself.
“This puppy has come here to die,” I told my husband.
Looking at the little dog, my heart was so full it made me angry. I was just a few months into marriage and the adventure of life at the Village, and I was feeling terribly forlorn. I had given my dog, Cora, to my father because I didn’t think she’d be happy in an RV. As I looked at the ragged black dog, all I could think about was how different he looked from my healthy, shining red hound dog.
I missed my dog. I missed my house. I missed everything about my old life. And I resented the intrusion of more sorrow into my house. But what could I do? To send the poor creature back out into the storm would have been treachery. And so I sat on the floor and petted the sleeping creature while the storm raged.
My years at the Village taught me many things about what makes a home, the most surprising is that home should be a good place to die. The little pup first confronted me with that truth and I was so angry, not wanting to believe it was true. But in time it became one of the most precious truths I carried away from my time there.
During our five years at the Village, my husband and I conceived three children. The first two died in my womb—one at six weeks, the other at eight weeks of pregnancy. I was devastated, and felt so lost in knowing what to say when I stood at the doors of another’s heart. These losses were the first great grief in my life, but I was blessed to be in a place where no one was afraid to open the door to sorrow. My own husband, first of all, modeled this hospitality. He lost his mother to cancer during his freshman year of college, and his father the year before we were married. And so my grief—our shared grief— did not frighten him. He knew to keep the kettle hot and to bring another blanket. He’s allergic to cats, and yet he would open the door and let one of the Village kittens slip inside and purr herself to sleep upon my chest.
And our formerly homeless neighbors—they were men and women of many sorrows, well acquainted with grief. And so there was no awkwardness, no pretending. Not once did I have to push sorrow out of sight, pretending she was not my companion at the door. My friends—my addicted, demented, disabled friends—would see Sorrow standing next to me and name her. “I’m so sorry your baby died,” they would say. “F**** that s****.”
I have been thinking again about how hospitality must welcome sorrow as we enter Holy Week. This morning my children and I read about Christ’s turning the tables of the predatory business interests in the Temple. His Father’s house—the place that should be his home—Jesus found full of corruption. But then, the Gospel tells us, after turning over the tables, Jesus welcomed “the blind and the lame [who] came to him in the temple, and he healed them” (Matthew 21:14 ESV). Jesus shows the chief priests and scribes that the master has returned to His Father’s house, and he does this by welcoming the little ones, the children, the broken and hurting. And then He Himself leaves the Temple and goes to the town of Bethany, where he lodges for the night (21:17). Though Mattew does not specify this, it seems likely that Jesus goes to stay with his friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.
Today I’m thinking about those siblings, and about what it means to welcome Jesus into your house as a guest and friend. To welcome the Christ who has been reviled in His own Temple. To welcome the Savior whose own death approaches. To welcome the friend weighed down by grief.
If we look to John’s Gospel we see that Mary, at least, had a sense of how to welcome sorrow when it came into the house with her Lord. The siblings host a meal for Jesus while He stays with them. While Martha serves and her brother dines, Mary brings ointment to anoint Jesus, preparing his body for burial even before the Crucifixion (John 12;1-8). Mary does not look away from the sorrow that is coming, but she meets it with honesty and sacrifice. Her home become a good place to die.
The Village only really began to feel like home to me after our miscarriages. To know that you are welcome to bring your sorrows, even your death, in the door — that is the deepest form of hospitality, a welcome that builds a bridge from our heavy hours into the mysterious joy of eternity.
Have you ever been welcomed by someone during a season of grief?
Wow! This hits close to home as we’ve witnessed our middle daughter go through two miscarriages recently after having a successful birth (a toddler of almost 2 years now). She had to sit with her sorrow and lean hard into the Lord to bring her to a point of acceptance of what was and is and has come to understand having joy and sorrow at the same time.
There was a roll over bus accident Friday involving special Ed and preK kids in Hayes ISD, Michelle's district. She is ministering to day at the school the kids were from, Tom Green. Please keep her in prayer today. As well as all those touched by this tragedy.