Extreme Home Makeover

Fred and I watch Extreme Home Makeover on most Sundays. Usually it involves a family who has gone through or is going through something tragic, like incurable illness in a family member, or recent widowhood, or a serious injury in the line of duty that requires a member to be in a wheel chair but the house is not accessible. Also, the family is usually doing something exceptional. Like a member supporting others in a similar distressful situation, or caring for kids in the neighborhood. The Home Makeover team comes in and tears down the house and builds another, perfectly suited to the family's needs.

In the families where there is some sort of community outreach going on, the home makeover team will usually create the house with the service in mind. Such as a large kitchen for someone who cooks for others, or a big clubhouse for someone who has the neighborhood kids over for afternoon homework or play time.

For the families doing an outreach, when they come into the house that has been made especially for ease of continuing that outreach, the responses are different than the houses that are just for the family to enjoy. They come into the house so overjoyed, not for themselves, but for all of the people they will now be able to serve.

Last time I watched, a woman who has a muscular degenerative disease who is in a wheelchair and her son with extreme vision problems, both cook for and serve the kids of the community. She makes sure that they have enough to eat and cooks lots of dinners (One time she cooked Christmas dinner for 480 people from a tiny unaccessible kitchen without enough room for her to rotate her wheelchair.) and provides them a safe place to work on homework or hang out after school, most importantly she tells them that she loves them. I say most importantly because as a teacher, there were many times where I felt that that was the most important thing I was doing. Letting kids know that I love them. Lots of kids don't hear that very often. Parents are stressed, overworking, or just don't realize the importance of it, so I would do it as often as I could. The kids appreciated it so much.

As soon as she was let into her brand new house she was overwhelmed that she could have so much room and such a great kitchen and storeplaces for gifts and supplies, not so she could relax but so that she could serve the kids so much more efficiently.

I told Fred that this was her thing. It was what she lived for. I wonder what my thing is. What am I living for? Who am I serving? Who am I giving the position above my own concerns and cares and spending myself for?

I don't think anything or anybody right now, but I would like to seek the Lord to find out what that is for me. I'd rather not it be nothing.

When I was teaching I so enjoyed being there for the kids, letting them know I cared for them, loved them, and felt that it was my small something. (I didn't love the actual teaching part as much.) Now I have no something.