The One With The Nail In It

We are going to buy a new house. Not this week or this month, exactly, but soon. Soon enough that I take any detour I can to check out a previously unknown neighborhood. I watch the cable channel with homes for sale, and I run Internet searches for new listings, like clockwork, every two days. I slow the car to a crawl on streets I like, so I won't miss any "For Sale By Owner" signs.

I'm obsessive, yes! But I'm on a mission. I am looking for just the right place. A diamond in the rough, maybe. A "hot property." Our family's perfect worldly home. I have prayed that my eyes will be open, that my ears will be tuned so that I may see and hear God's guidance to just the right house. And I believe that knowledge will come to me. But for now, I mostly just drive. And down every detour, around every cul-de-sac, I carry a 3-year-old passenger.

After about a hundred questions, Miles has come to quite like these detours of ours. He's really caught the spirit of the "search for a new house" game. (Part of what's happening is that we're preparing him for our house to be in on-the-market condition, for our packing up entire rooms and for a move to an unfamiliar home. He has some real OCD tendencies, and we've found that PLENTY of advance warning -- plus lots of ongoing explanantion -- minimizes his inflexibility.)

Miles sees himself as an equal participant in our home search. He's on a mission, too. Today, as I turned off the road to home, he said to me, "Are we looking for other people's houses with the signs on them? The ones for sale to new families?"

I said yes and he kept talking. Miles has been very chatty in his car seat of late, so he manages entire conversations with my only occasional input. "We just need ONE house," I heard him say. "And we will look and look and look until we find just the right one -- the one with the nail in it."

Now this caught my ear. "What, honey? What do you mean?"

"Our new house will be the one with the nail in it. Inside. In my room, we will find one nail in the wall so I can hang my fireman hat."

Is this thought not sweet enough to bust an entire heart wide open?

Once, many many weeks ago, Miles wanted to erect a fireman's pole in his room. I had to tell him no. But, I said, maybe in our next house, we could make a special place to store his fireman gear. "GREAT!" he said -- as he so often says, about everything from toothpaste to turkey dogs -- and I soon forgot. But not Miles. He didn't forget. He held the picture of what he wanted -- not "4 bedrooms/ 2 baths," "side-entry garage" or " new heat & air" -- but what he REALLY wanted, and he maintains utter faith he will find it.

And all the kid really wants is a place to hang his black "Fire Chief" helmet. He will know he has found his home when he finds, literally, a place to hang his hat.

My God Above, we should all be so blessed in this life! May we want no more than a place to hang our hats. May we look, expectantly, for our rightful homes, with eyes open to recognize the spaces. And may our most deeply moving places always have nails in them.

Since it is Lent, the connection must be made plain. I'm sure most readers can follow the dots on their own. And, truthfully, I prefer a lingering implication over a hammered point. But it is Lent, the season of repentance and recognition. A time to solemnly wrestle with what it is to need and receive a Savior. Today, my very small and very precious child reminded me that the best home, the most perfect place with a nail already in it, is in the palm of a hand once pierced for a cross.