In Every Home, the Walls Are Thin

The home we rent is your average house but its walls are characteristically thin. If there’s a confidential chat to be had it has to be basically whispered; arguments, on the other hand, are audible spectacles for the whole neighbourhood to enjoy (not)! We love our home but this is one of the continual drawbacks, especially for a boisterous person like me.

There’s not much hidden in families, is there? It’s how God gets into, and even under, our skin. Family is how we’re drawn back to ourselves. These are inescapable facts that compel us to live truthfully lest we otherwise be wanton liars. And how many choose this stance (that of the liar) to protect, and provide for, the shell of selfish insecurities of life?

Family can be a sort of ‘Tower of Babel’ where our language and communication is confused and there’s much variant meaning in almost everything said. Nothing can be assumed. All must be confirmed. It goes without saying that we’ve all got challenges on our hands at home far superior (or far different) to that experienced elsewhere in life.

People at home are people we can’t deceive and these people are sometimes impossible to convince also. It’s the way life is the world over, I don’t care who you are. “Family” is a device God uses for his glory in revealing to us how basic the problem of sin really is.

And if the walls are thin and our lives are more transparent than we’d otherwise like, we face a nemesis that can’t be tamed. God is no respecter of persons i.e. he favours not one over another. The basic fact of life is those close are close for a reason. They’re divinely-appointed mirrors for our souls to continually reflect upon.

Feel free to take a good look.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.