How Big is Your House?

When I was about thirteen years old, I remembered we lived in a double wide trailer in Cashion, Arizona. To this day, every time I smell something that smells like rotten eggs, I think of a perfume called "Evening in Cashion". Mom and dad divorced and long horrible story made short, mom remarried an ex convict she met the week he got out of San Quinton Prison. They had eloped. I'm saving money for boots because my friend Mona had a pair. When I got up to five dollars I was so happy. Pulling weeds, cleaning and babysitting paid off! My stepdad (who by the way was 6'5" and 350 pounds) walked up to me and said "give me that five and I'll make five hundred out of it". Me, being part stupid and part scared to say no, relinquished my hard earned money, never to see or hear about it again...fast forward three months or so and I'm on the school bus going home down that dusty dirty road called Durango that we lived on, when all of a sudden a boy with a speech impediment yells out "WHEERZ YOEZ HOUZZZEE??? I'm like..WHAT??? What do you mean where's my house?? I look out the window and what should my eyes behold? Our lot with one big brown square on it where our trailer use to be!! I'm shocked, but most of all mortified and embarrassed! What can I say?? It needed a tune-up?? I get off the bus and while standing there staring in disbelief, my mom and step dad pull up and yell, "get in the car"! Off we drive to a relatives house who lived in Cashion also, and sitting on her lot was a travel trailer. Little did I know that this travel trailer was to become our home for years...all six of us in that tiny travel trailer. What a nightmare! I was labeled a recurring runaway by the State not because I hated my mom but because I was claustrophobic! Don't worry...the State didn't buy it either. Fast forward to today, I have a comfortable roof over my head that I thank God for every day. However, when my friend Gary died so suddenly, I was reminded, this is not my real house. The Lord goes and prepares a place for us that believe...even in His name. Simply close your eyes and say "Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and I need a Savoir. Please forgive me of my disbelief and come into my heart". That's it. Then, when we get to that final blink of an eye, we will all be reunited with our loved ones who knew the Lord. When I saw Gary laying on that gurney, I saw peace...calm....maybe even half a smile. He's absent from the body but present with the Lord ... who is the ressurection and the life. Gary is in his real house now never to hurt or cry or die again. Praise the Lord.