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Just the word "sanctuary," when spoken, seems to give me a feeling of peace. Sanctuary. It carries a specialness with it--this isn't a word I say every day, not a word I hear every day. Sanctuary.
It carries with it a religious meaning, of course, but I think that it can go beyond labeling a room in a church. For example, I think of this word most often when I am in my living room. A few years ago, we remodeled our living room completely. With the help of skilled friends, it went from being jumbled, dark, and cluttered to feeling modern, refreshing, and at least somewhat organized. Of course, as I type this there are newspapers on the floor, odds and ends scattered around, music stacked on the piano bench.
Still, it feels safe. When I need to talk seriously with the children, I sit with them on the sofa, surrounded by the coolness of the green paint and overshadowed by the large landscape print that hangs above it. It's easier to talk there and--perhaps more important--it's easier to listen.
When I am hurting, or overwhelmed, or when I wake up in the middle of the night and need to leave the bedroom so that my husband is not awakened by my tossings and turnings, I retreat to this sanctuary. The reading light makes a pool of comfort in the quiet room. Peace. Safety. Normalcy. A promise that this long night will end and that the sun will come up, brightening a clean slate of a day.
Of course, I could use the word sanctuary for my bedroom, as well. I think it is no surprise that these rooms are both rooms that we extensively redecorated and remodeled. In making it our own, in planning how it would be used and who would use it, we made a safe place in the middle of chaos. No matter how messy the bedroom gets, it is still a retreat, a sacred place that is not typically trespassed into by children or guests. It is Chris's and mine, the place where we have the most serious conversations, where we talk about things that we are not ready to share with even our children.
These are only rooms, yet they take on an air of the sacred. I think they have an even further lesson: these rooms remind me that I should be a sanctuary of sorts. I should be the kind of person that promises rest, peace, comfort. In the same way that I remodeled these rooms according to my pattern and purposes, God is remodeling me--and many of the blueprints I see include love, compassion, kindness, gentleness. A promise that while there may be skirmishes (for no private retreat can be completely trouble-free), there is a starting over. There is a new day. There is a blank slate.
There is sanctuary.
It carries with it a religious meaning, of course, but I think that it can go beyond labeling a room in a church. For example, I think of this word most often when I am in my living room. A few years ago, we remodeled our living room completely. With the help of skilled friends, it went from being jumbled, dark, and cluttered to feeling modern, refreshing, and at least somewhat organized. Of course, as I type this there are newspapers on the floor, odds and ends scattered around, music stacked on the piano bench.
Still, it feels safe. When I need to talk seriously with the children, I sit with them on the sofa, surrounded by the coolness of the green paint and overshadowed by the large landscape print that hangs above it. It's easier to talk there and--perhaps more important--it's easier to listen.
When I am hurting, or overwhelmed, or when I wake up in the middle of the night and need to leave the bedroom so that my husband is not awakened by my tossings and turnings, I retreat to this sanctuary. The reading light makes a pool of comfort in the quiet room. Peace. Safety. Normalcy. A promise that this long night will end and that the sun will come up, brightening a clean slate of a day.
Of course, I could use the word sanctuary for my bedroom, as well. I think it is no surprise that these rooms are both rooms that we extensively redecorated and remodeled. In making it our own, in planning how it would be used and who would use it, we made a safe place in the middle of chaos. No matter how messy the bedroom gets, it is still a retreat, a sacred place that is not typically trespassed into by children or guests. It is Chris's and mine, the place where we have the most serious conversations, where we talk about things that we are not ready to share with even our children.
These are only rooms, yet they take on an air of the sacred. I think they have an even further lesson: these rooms remind me that I should be a sanctuary of sorts. I should be the kind of person that promises rest, peace, comfort. In the same way that I remodeled these rooms according to my pattern and purposes, God is remodeling me--and many of the blueprints I see include love, compassion, kindness, gentleness. A promise that while there may be skirmishes (for no private retreat can be completely trouble-free), there is a starting over. There is a new day. There is a blank slate.
There is sanctuary.
