Today, I passed a house
that had two wooden rocking chairs on the front porch. Immediately, my mind went to my grandparents’
house. Every time we visited and rounded
that last corner before their house, I would see them sitting on their front porch. They would see us, and wave.
Do people still sit on
their front porches anymore? Or have we
all moved to the back porch, surrounded by our fences and shrubs, content to
just be alone?
Isn’t this a picture of
how we live our lives? If we keep our
true self on the “back porch” where no one will hurt us, no one will judge us
then no one will really know us either. We can create our “utopia” on the “back porch”. We can imagine that everything is roses and
sunshine, that life is exactly what we want it to be. But is it?
Do the rose bushes in the back yard need trimming? The leaves need raked? It’s okay because no one sees it. What if we moved to the “front porch”? It’s
scary to put ourselves on the “front porch”, to be open, honest, vulnerable. To let others see our flaws, our scars, our “weeds. What if people don’t like me? What if they don’t respect me anymore? What if they think I’m just a tad weird? It’s funny to me that these questions so
easily pop into my mind when I think about living life on the “front porch”. Will people see Christ in me? Will they understand that my imperfections
are covered lavishly by His grace? Will
they, through my honesty, realize that they are not alone in their
struggles? Shouldn’t these questions be
more motivating to me as I consider living life on the “front porch”?
So, today, two simple
rocking chairs stopped me in my tracks.
Am I living on the “back porch”?
Am I willing to move to the “front porch”? Maybe, just maybe, I’ll
venture out onto the front porch and sit a spell………
