DROPS OF LOVE ON THE WINDOWS

You don’t see it much anymore.  But it was a quite common sight in my childhood.  The winter months would bring a season of cold to the normally warm Alabama country side.  Firewood which had been cut and stacked and allowed to cure during the hot summer month was brought in and placed in the fire place.  A roaring fire would warm the home and make it nice and cozy. Or perhaps you may have heated with gas space heaters or a floor furnace.  At any rate, the outside cold, the whipping Canadian wind, hindered only by a barbed wire fence somewhere along the border of North Dakota was somehow warded off by the warmth of the fire inside. 

The memorable sight which I am thinking of this morning was made even more prominent in the kitchen.  Mom would be cooking something.  Isn’t it funny how the kitchen will always bring about memories of Mom?  The warmth coming from the stove would enhance the warmth from the heater or fireplace and on the windows of the kitchen would form the familiar sight of condensation.  Drops of warmth, love and home ran down the window panes of those old houses.  It stood as a sign for all to see that the inside of this house was warmer than the cold on the outside.

We’ve come a long way in residential heating and cooling in 2014.  Insulated windows, central heat and air, hermetically sealed cubes of heating efficiency are where we live now.  No drafts of cutting frigid air, no single pane windows.  We are warm and safe and cozy.  We have done away with the condensation on the windows and threat from the outside cold.  Or have we?

Somehow I think the love and warmth of those old houses, some of which were so drafty with fissures in the doors, windows and walls so large you could “throw a goat through the cracks” has been left behind. Oh yeah, we have houses heated by all the luxuries modern man can imagine but where did the warmth go?  Back then you could look at the frost or the condensation on the windows and know that it was colder on the outside than it was on the inside.  In many of our homes today there is no difference in outside and inside. And in some cases our children feel “warmer” and feel more love outside the home than they do inside.  These things ought not to be. 

Our homes should be sanctuaries, strong-holds of love and safety to our children and grandchildren.  They should be places where memories of family, friends and God can grow.  They should be the safest place South of Heaven. I hope it’s so in your house.  I pray it’s so in mine. 

I hope this year during the cold winter months that your house will be warm.  I hope that your children will feel that warmth and love and that there will be condensation on your windows.  I hope there will be a visible, “feel-able” difference between the warmth and love in your home and the cold world outside.