Go Beyond

Mission, Texas

With Dad’s family. I’m the little kid in the suit.

Since January of this year I have led short-term mission teams to serve in Thailand, India, El Salvador, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. As much as I enjoy traveling to serve with our ministry partners around the world, I often tell team members that the best flight of all is always the flight home. I love the feeling of coming home and being home, if only for short intervals at a time. On Sunday afternoon I made another homeward journey. I drove the six-hours from my home in Katy to the South Texas city of McAllen to spend a few days with my Dad. McAllen is located a few miles from Mission where I was born in a small hospital that is now the school administration building. Something always happens when I return to the streets of Mission and to the places of my growing-up years. Somehow, the memories of days gone by know when I am in town and rush to greet me, each one tugging at me and vying for my attention.

While in El Salvador in February, a team member told me about Miranda Lambert’s hit song entitled, “The House That Built Me.” So, I downloaded the video onto my iPad and fell in love with it. Apparently so did a lot of other people. On February 13, Lambert won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for this song that resonates in so many hearts. I thought a lot about the house that built me on the long drive south. I am fortunate to have really great memories that still reside in the house that built me. And, I also have fun memories of the Mayberryesque streets where I roamed and played without the kinds of fears that keep kids today tightly tethered to their own backyards. These were the days before television and video games started to kidnap and hold kids hostage indoors, causing them to miss out on great adventures made even grander by boundless childhood imagination.

As I drove to my hometown on Sunday, I thought about the house that built me and also about my own home and how God used it to build my kids. In many ways, my home is a reflection of the things I learned in the house that built me — and that my wife learned in the house that built her. We are not perfect and have made lots of mistakes along the way, but we have never lost sight of nor ceased striving toward the goal of having a home that honors God. Here are the things I am most thankful for when I think about the house that built me.

Conversations | It’s easy for us to take our conversations at home for granted and to take liberties in how we speak to one another and how we speak about others. That is why we should heed the counsel of Ephesians 4:29 — “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” I am thankful for all of the wholesome conversations that I listened to while growing up. My little ears were listening!

Bookshelves | My grandfather and parents encouraged me and my siblings to read and to be curious about peoples and places. We had lots of books on the shelves as well as some great magazines to stimulate our curiosity, including National Geographic, Life, and Look — publications that helped us to explore our world and to look beyond ourselves. These were the days before magazines with names like People, Us, and Self.

Walls | I am grateful for walls and shelves adorned with art objects and bric-a-brac from around the world, including a collection of African spears and shields, pencil rubbings of bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat, Egyptian artifacts, and numerous other curiosities collected by family members throughout years of travel. These objects piqued my childhood curiosity about the peoples who live in faraway places.

Guests | Home was a place where guests were always welcome and the fortunate beneficiaries of something baked. My family loved to entertain guests. I recall one of my last conversations with my 96 year-old grandmother. She told me that she wished she had the physical strength to bake cakes and goodies to entertain guests. My siblings and I enjoyed lots from interesting guests who visited our home and brought with them gifts of conversation and laughter.

Family | The very best thing about the house that built me was my family. I was fortunate to grow up with both paternal and maternal grandparents who lived nearby. We spent lots of time in their homes and they spent lots of time in ours. They blessed us with unconditional love and unlimited amounts of encouragement. I always felt like the luckiest kid in the world when I was growing up. And, I was!  I am thankful for the house that built me and for the opportunity to spend a few days getting reacquainted with the precious memories that still reside there.