Part of ongoing series: How Millennials Who Gave up on Church are Reengaging Community and Redefining Faith
My initial neurotic thought was, “Is this a test to see if we really are a Christian family worthy of their house?”
by Ginger M • Mockingbird
This past Tuesday marked a day of several anniversaries for my family. Twelve years ago, my husband and I started dating. Nine years ago, we got engaged. One year ago, we moved into our current house.
When our realtor got back from taking over our contract to the homeowners last June, she told us that they were the nicest people with whom she’d ever negotiated a contract. They recognized our name on the contract because they attended the same church as my in-laws. They told her that they had been praying specifically for a young, Christian family to buy their house and were so excited it was going to be us.
Our realtor went on to tell us more about them. They kept the autistic children in their congregation during church services, so that the parents could go worship. Bill (name changed) was a contractor; each day he picked up a 75-year-old mentally challenged man who lived down the street and let him ride along on all day to his various jobs. They had kept their house in immaculate shape and spent every Saturday working on their yard.
When we looked at the house and in subsequent visits to the house for inspection, I noticed on the front door a cross with “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15) inscribed on it. I really didn’t think all that much of it (because these kind people definitely seemed to be legitimately serving the Lord) until we arrived on moving day and it was still there. While I grew up going to church every Sunday, my family certainly had no bible verses displayed anywhere in our house, especially not on our front door.
Needless to say, I wanted that bible verse cross off my new front door. We arrived on moving day as they were finishing loading up their cars. As they packed their final things, I kept waiting for them to grab the cross.
They left without it.
My initial neurotic thought was “Is this a test to see if we really are a Christian family worthy of their house?”
My second thought was, “Are you really a Christian? You claim to believe the bible! Who cares if you think this cross is tacky, wow, you’re shallow.”
My third thought was “How am I ever going to have anyone over with this thing on my door! My mother would die!”
