A Blessing for a New Home

Even as I write this, the earth is moving.

That’s a bit dramatic, I know.  But that’s what I do as a writer: find dramatic ways to state ordinary things.  For example, the beginning of construction on the church building for Christ the King Presbyterian.  Then again, maybe what I’m doing is exposing the drama in moments that are not ordinary at all.

A church is a family—not for nothing are all those metaphors of being adopted into the household of God.  Even leaving God out of it (impossible as that may be), when you bring a crowd of people who are trying to be the best they can be, together into a group every week—it’s inevitable that they begin to care for one another.  All that warmth and kindness of broken people who know how hard it is to live in a broken world is stronger than the ties of blood.

And when any family finds a home, it is a thrilling thing.  A home bears witness to life and love and death, and a church shelters those things, too—baptisms, weddings, funerals, as well as music and worship and fellowship and the things that bring savor to life.  And this place has been anticipated for over a decade, longer than I’ve been around, but I’ve inherited the excitement.

I was driving by a few weeks ago, before the work started, and a splash of red caught the corner of my eye.  The field where we are building now was then coated with red flowers, a brilliant carpet across the land where our church would be built.  I later learned that the flowers were called crimson clover, a type of wildflower.  The scientific name is Trifolium incarnatum, the latter meaning ‘blood red’. 

I was overwhelmed by the symbolism of this.  I thought, it’s such a shame that we will have to destroy all of these flowers before we can build anything.  How long will it be before flowers grow on this land again?  But that is the world we live in—sometimes things have to be broken and the old ways pulled up before we can move on and build something new.  I read also that this kind of clover is used to feed stock animals like sheep.  It made me smile, and it made me hope, for God is faithful and provides for his flock.  The flowers were like a blessing from God, a sign of provision and beauty to represent His approval.

I’ve saved a few of the flowers pressed in my journal, wanting to remember their beauty even after they are gone.  On Earth, beauty my die, but it lasts in the memory of God, which can never fail, and which holds us safe.