lonely open house book club

One of my occupational hazards as a Real Estate broker, especially in the current Buyer's market, is that Open Houses have disintegrated into ghost towns. Despite my best marketing efforts, there are some properties that just struggle to attract even a single prospective buyer on any given Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Today was such a day.

There were lots of reasons - the 106 degree temperature (yikes!) among them - for the utter lack of turnout at the little townhouse in the Eucaplytus trees. Instead of despairing, my beloved clients (who, in this case, also happen to be longtime friends) set out a great assortement of reading material for me to enjoy while I waited for elusive visitors to make an appearance.

My clients know me well. They know I read voraciously, at an extremely fast pace, and that I love books with my own brand of ridiculous giddy passion. These clients have left new books for me to read each time I have held an Open House at their home. The first few weeks, I was not able to take advantage of their generously offered reading material. The last two Open Houses, though, have been so vacant and lonely that I have been able to read two complete volumes during my 2-3 hour stays.

At the last open house, the book I chose was "Let's Roll". I am not sure that it was the best idea to engage in such an emotionally saturated book while conducting an Open House at which potential buyers may appear at any moment. I was reduced to tears more than once during my reading, and had to put the book down and walk outside to get myself together a few times. The book paints the poignant and passionate life story of Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer as told by his wife Lisa, who lost her husband and the father to her two boys on September 11, 2001 when she was 4 months pregnant with their third child, when the airplane he was riding on was hijacked and crashed into a Pennsylvania field. It was a remarkable read. Compelling and moving, it had me glued to its pages and I finished it in less than 90 minutes, including the breaks I took from the texts to wipe my eyes and clear my thoughts. Our Lord created in me an almost painfully tender heart, and reading about such a personal tradgedy by a grace-filled woman of God just broke me. And not once, but many times, I had to set the book down and walk outside to get myself together. It was a struggle for me to get through in that respect, but worth the effort entirely. I am better for reading that book.

But today's book utterly changed me. As in: the person I was when I arrived at the door of my clients' home is not the same as the person I was when I left my client's home. This book powerfully contributed to moving some mountains within me. And I am now standing on the other side in disbelief and joy that this overdue, yet personally epic journey took only one day.

Today, the Open House prospects were so gloomy that I was able to start and finish a book I have wanted to read for about a year, "Grace Based Parenting". I say "wanted to read" because I have meant to read it, been told it is a great book, and planned to read it, but for some reason - just hadn't until today. I believe that the delay in reading this book was 100% in the hands of God, who has been preparing my heart to receive the message of the text. Though I expected to receive this book warmly, I found myself unwilling to stop reading even to go to the bathroom! I actually sat in one place for 2 hours, without moving, and read it from cover to cover. I powered through the text as one who was stranded on a desert island for a week with no food or water and was just thrown a Freebirds burrito and a chilled Dr. Pepper. I devoured this book in big thirsty gulps. It fed my heart in places I did not realize I was hungry. The 2 hours I took to finish reading the book (including 4 seperate crying breaks. You'll just have to read the book to understand why it so genuinely pulls at my heartstrings: there is a story in it about a little boy at a restaurant buffet that reduced me to open weeping. And praying.) is not unusual for me-who-reads-at-lightening-speed. But what is unusual - what is amazing, actually, is that I am not satiated, not satisfied, not done with the book at all. While I took the messages to heart and invested myself wholly in understanding and embracing the concepts the author imparted, it was not just a cerebral exercise for me. It transformed my heart. Even though I read it word for word, understood it and loved it, I can't to read it over and over. In my life, it is rare that a book find deep resonance within me and compel me to read it repeatedly, immediately.

This book moved me. Reached out and shook me and ministered to me. The message of this book registered at about a 8.9 on the Richter scale in the heart of Lachen. That kind of earthquake will alter your reality fairly effectively. At the very least, even if your heart is not in the most raw, tender, and God appointed willing place that mine is to receive this information right now, the TRUTH of the teaching will rattle most of us enough to at least knock a few picures off the walls.

I got home this evening, and after everyone was settled into their beds, I paced inside my own mind. Finally I prayed and then got online to try to locate a cheap (sorry, honey - INEXPENSIVE) used copy of the book. I just want to drink from it again, be challenged as I find myself both identifying with and repulsed by some of the core elements of ineffective pseudo~Christian parenting the author attacks. I find myself yearning not to inflict my humanity onto my children but to impart Godliness INTO my children. Best to do that by teaching and emulating and offering and living GRACE, which I altogether fail to do far too often.

It is one thing to say something with your lips that is meant to come from your heart. And quite another to live something with your life that gives breath to your being and is the genesis of who you are in the Lord.

It's transforming to have a book echo back to you your own self-condemnation in some areas while championing your hearts' cry in others, and all the while intricately carving the message of redemptive grace deeper into the core of your being. Where it belongs anyway and without which... well, who are we kidding?

Reading this book and the reflective, contemplative prayer and study that followed this evening has led me closest to a peaceful resting place about LaLa's school path for next year, our friendships with other couples and families, and the persistent grapples with church and work we face (conceptually and specifically) than I have been in the whole of my life. Nothing like a failed, lonely open house to bring about an unexpected earthquake of the soul.

I can't help but meet tomorrow with a palate of thankfulness and a winged spirit. I am always most content when my insides are being sandblasted by their Creator ~ when I am aware that within me is work in progress. I am is thrilled beyond measure to be deemed worthy of God's efforts.