When I was eight years old, my parents bought me a 35-millimeter camera, an oblong pink, plastic thing with the name “Barbie” splashed across the top in that neon lettering so characteristic of the late eighties. I loved that camera and the ability to grab a moment and memorialize it in printed form whenever my allowance would allow me the luxury of getting the film developed. My younger sister is the one who grew up to become a professional photographer, but I’m glad I went through that phase with the pink camera because of all the pictures I took, there is one that stands out most in my memory. I don’t have any idea where the photo is, probably lost to time and moves and my proclivity to throw most everything away. But somewhere once there was a photo of my mother standing at the stove cooking dinner. The angle is pointed upwards, the photographer obviously a small child, capturing a humoring smile from my mom who stands holding a spatula that’s poised over a heavy bottomed skillet full of browning meat. My mom is probably in her early thirties, an age I’ve long since passed myself. There’s nothing remarkable about the photo except that I still love it and mourn its loss. It’s just my mom being a mom, standing at the stove preparing dinner like she did every day of my childhood.
I wanted to be her. Back then, I was a child with a Barbie camera and my pretend pots and pans and a burning desire to be someone with a home and a kitchen and a schedule and a life uninhibited by bedtimes or being short for my age. I played house with the girl next door most days of every summer, both of us dressing up in our mothers’ castoffs and clacking down the sidewalks in heels that were much too big. I longed to be grown up, to have my own heavy bottomed skillet preparing my own dinners for my own family in my own home. I played house but knew that it was a shadow of what was to come. At the end of the day, I put away my toy dishes and dress-up clothes and obeyed the nightly routines of bath time and bed, lights out and “no, you may not get up again” like most every other kid. Even at eight years old, snapping photos of ordinary living, I knew what I wanted and knew that I would have to wait for it. Playing house was a way of bringing my future up close to my chest. I couldn’t wait.
I’m forty-one years old now and I have the heaviest bottomed skillet I could ever imagine, a cast iron number my grandmother gave me when I got married nineteen years ago. It’s well-seasoned and well-used for I am the woman at the stove every night of my life preparing dinner for my family. I’m the wife of the man I love most, the mother of two sons, the laundress, the housekeeper, the cook, the story-reader, the homework-reminder, the fight-settler, and the writer who grabs hold of every silent moment to scribble in journals or clack out thoughts into my laptop. It is nothing like I imagined as a child. It’s harder. And better. Playing house as a child, I imagined what life would be like but there were no sorrows woven into my pretense. Only joys. Only good things. Only the things I thought would be fulfilling and satisfying. My mom standing at the stove, smiling down at the pink camera. I would never have played house with my actual future in mind. I wouldn’t have factored in two decades of negative pregnancy tests, a disease that crippled me with pain before I turned thirty. I never would have included kids who needed major surgeries or have hard beginnings or adoptions that were more difficult to navigate than the paperwork led me to believe. I wouldn’t have banked on living my life as a pastor’s wife and what the words “fish bowl” would mean to me. I wouldn’t have added in loneliness, marital fights, financial strain, funerals, or any number of sorrows that we all live through on this earth. I played house as a small child only weaving in the best parts of living that I could imagine. Only the best parts.
Sometimes I stand at the stove in my little kitchen, stirring pots or searing chicken in my cast iron skillet, and I feel…restless. Not in the quotidian angry housewife “is this all there is to my life?” kind of way. No, I’m literally living my childhood dream as I stand and stir, hand poised over the skillet. I consider it a great gift that I can do the thing I considered so important that I memorialized it in film when I was eight. It’s not that kind of restlessness. It’s deeper than that. I love my home, my family, my life. But, there is something carved into the deepest layer of who I am that longs for a life that’s realer than this. That lasts longer. That means more, that hurts less. When I’m standing at the stove, or taking kids to school, or folding laundry, or working on a manuscript, I know that this is just a shadow of what’s coming next. Not that this life doesn’t matter because oh, how much it matters. But sometimes I feel like I’m playing house—home, actually. I’m playing home. I’m living and breathing and working and parenting and loving and resting in a place that isn’t my true home. I feel it all the time. Some days of living are so good and sweet and enjoyable that I know they are just a whisper of what’s to come for those of us who walk with Christ. And some days are so hard and lonely and heavy that tears rub the skin raw around my eyes. Those days also remind me that we’re not home yet. Not truly. Thankfully this isn’t it.
What comes next for believers is the home we can only imagine here. Our best days are just a sin-tainted glimmer of the glory that awaits us in a city whose builder and architect is God. Our worst days are an arrow that guides our vision to the home that holds our true citizenship. If we feel out of step sometimes, it’s because we’re exiles here in a world that groans for renewal and re-creation and the return of our Savior. At best, we’re playing home. One day we’ll live and breathe and exist and love and worship and work—and there won’t be any tinges of sadness or loss or grief or pain. We don’t have to weave any of those difficulties into our imaginings of what heaven will be like. We can put in just the best parts, knowing even then it’s still only the faintest glimpse of what will be real and good and true and lasting. We can play home and bring our future up close to our chests. Jesus is coming back for us and He’ll take us home, really home. Home. He’s getting it ready for us right now.
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On my early morning walk the other day, I noticed a dew-covered pair of expensive tennis shoes that had been kicked off in the front yard of a little bungalow in my neighborhood. I smiled without judgment because I know that little boys do that. At some point that morning, a harried mother with a full to-do list and a gaggle of kids to get to school would be shouting “where are your shoes” to a child with bedhead and sleepy eyes, and the day would begin. And I’ve had I don’t know how many days like that. Because I am the woman standing at the stove smiling down at the pink plastic camera who knows this is good and sweet and blessed, but it is not all there is.
I am the woman standing at the stove smiling down at the pink plastic camera who knows this is good and sweet and blessed, but it is not all there is. Share on X
Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.