After two months of temporary living after our devastating house fire, we have officially settled into our new home and embark on our new chapter. And this week, I was blessed to hear a sound that I welcomed back into our lives…laughter.
My oldest son James asked if his best friend could stay the night at our home. And along with his girlfriend visiting us earlier that evening, we placed two more settings at our dinner table. Over plates of fried deer meat and vegetables, the Patterson home was filled with seven people that night.
And as I dove into my dinner plate, my heart was warmed to hear the laughter coming from my three children and their two friends. My ears were filled with the ramblings of inside jokes, a rundown of humorous moments that had happened at school earlier, and a few slang words that I have no idea what they mean.
But as we filled our stomachs with a hot meal, my heart was filled with the warmth that our home was beginning to sound like a home again. The walls of our home were filled with the sound of forks scrapping across plates, the sound of our pet dog outside begging for scraps and the sound of five kids laughing their heads off.
As my husband Jason and I cleaned up the kitchen after supper, those sounds continued with our youngest son Jase watching cartoons in the living room, our daughter Elsie playing with our pet cat and three teenagers stomping through the house. And I smiled to myself because I was completely happy at that moment.
I went to sleep that night and thanked God for the tremendous blessings He has given us. It took us being left with nothing to remind me of the true riches in life. I had a roof over my head, a stomach full of food, my husband beside me and a house filled with kids.
The next morning, I woke up before everybody else to get ready for work. And that reminder that God will provide hit me again. Sipping my cup of coffee, I let the cat inside and watched my dog sleeping in the back yard. I heard Jason upstairs getting into the shower. And I couldn’t help but even smile even when I had to climb over piles dirty clothes to wake the kids up for school.
Our God is an awesome God, and He is good, all the time. And although He has provided us with another house, He has given us the blessings of having a home.
There will come a time when the kids leave home to begin their own chapters. There will come a time when the sounds are quieter. There will come a time when there are only two settings at the dinner table, and the piles of dirty clothes are no longer there.
But I will always remember that moment I had this week, hoping that there are many more of them before those times arrive…a dinner table under a roof with hot food and the sound of laughter from my kids and their friends. It will forever be a time when we were all together, happy and safe…a time when a house became a home again.
