The derelict old house on the prairie belongs to a farmer friend, a man attached to the land and the things attached to it. On a breezy fall bike ride, my grandbean led us there, pedaling hard and fast, as though it called him.
We’ve visited the abandoned Sears (I suspect) pre-war home before. We never go in; just stand outside, looking in. Feeling bad for the old green two-storey, propped up by Virginia creeper aA
On our first visit, even the chattiest among us fell silent as we picked our way through the long grass and, carefully negotiating the rotten stairs, stepped onto the porch. Peering into the living room we saw a collapsing ceiling, a mess of bird waste, crumbling lath and plaster walls. We talked about who may have lived there, and why they abandoned it.
We didn’t stay long. The mood of the place, like an aroma, quickly enveloped us. But leaving the yard, one of the beans, the one in the middle, stopped rather suddenly. Turned around. Looked back.
“When I get big, Nana,” said she, all sober and six and going on sixteen. “When I get big, I’m gonna buy this house and fix it up. And make it beautiful, Nana. And live in it.”
Perhaps I’ve read her “The Little House,” too often, I thought. The vintage book tells the story of just such a home. A pink house, once smiling on a countryside hilltop. A house once surrounded by children on swings and apple blossoms in spring. A house now abandoned, lonely and surrounded by towering skyscrapers.
A passing young woman pauses one day, feeling a connection to the place. Discovering that the house had once belonged to her great-great-grandmother, she moves it back to the countryside, a setting very like its original. At the story’s end, surrounded by children on swings and apple blossoms in spring, the little pink house smiles again.
I usually read that story to the Beans at bedtime, in low light and my best reading voice. Though the words and illustrations are simple, it parallels something profound about people – something I want them to know: In God’s view, no one, no matter their past, is beyond restoration. Two things are necessary: a willingness to be restored, and someone who cares enough to bear the cost and do the work.
Jesus is that someone. A carpenter while on earth, he’s still in the building and restoration business. He has an intimate connection with each derelict spirit he knows, and he knows us all. As he passes our tottering walls and shattered windows, he longs for an invitation to move in and make us whole. For Christ not only restores, he inhabits – and his works remain glorious forever.
