^” Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Today’s gratitude is for the wonderful gift of a secure, safe, healthy place to call home.

Our Wake Forest house (the third “Maul Hall” since we launched the idea with our Piedmont Rd. residence in Pensacola) may be a work in progress, and Rebekah may well be planning projects as yet unimagined by her less adventurous spouse, but it is our sanctuary, our home-base, our safe-place, and in that regard we are privileged beyond the wildest dreams of much of this world.

• We have clean drinking water at the touch of a tap (close to one billion have no access at all, let alone right there in their home; and lack of access kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
• We have electricity (2.5 billion do not).
• We have heat and air-conditioning.
• We have a refrigerator stuffed with food, plus an ample pantry, and I’ll be going out to buy more today (chronic hunger is an issue for approximately one-billion people).
• We live in a safe neighborhood. We have well-lit streets with sidewalks. We are free to come and go as we please. We can say what we like in public. We can worship without restriction….

HOME: Yesterday evening Rebekah and I met Andrew and Alicia (our son and his bride) at the airport. We took them out to dinner, and then we drove to Maul Hall. They have never been here before, and they were jet-lagged from the Venice/Brussels/Philadelphia/Raliegh-Durham flight; but they instantly felt at home.

How cool is that! We are so grateful to have this physical space where we can offer “home” to anyone who walks through the doors, a place where we can be ourselves. And I am deeply thankful for the sense of peace and welcome that permeates every cubic inch.

FOUNDATION: Of course, a huge element of the definition of “home” resides in the faithfulness, the commitment, and the love that binds it all together.

I know a lot of fancy mansions, stocked with abundant supplies of food, technology, fine furnishings and more, where there is no security at all because faithfulness, commitment, and self-giving love have never found a home there.

So I am even more thankful for the quality of home Rebekah and I have nurtured over the past 34 years of deliberate commitment, genuine love, and intentional faithfulness.

HOME IS A DECISION: Much of what I’m thankful for is mine via the good fortune of living in a nation where our security is guaranteed, along with access to food, water, and power. But the more foundational experience of “home” is ours because of the decisions we have made, and continue to make.

Let me express this as a covenant. “Rebekah and I (still) promise:”

• “to keep God at the center of our home;
• “to share faith as a core value of our relationship;
• “to put one-another first, and serve the other as a daily decision;
• “to be faithful stewards of the love we enjoy;
• “to work at love deliberately, because we know love is, first and always, a choice, an act of the will…”

And there is more, of course; but this is what I mean when I say that I’m so grateful for a safe, secure, healthy place to call home, and this is what I mean when I say that I believe such security really is within reach for every family.

– DEREK