Deuteronomy 6:4-9

^“4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Since before we had even decided to build a house I knew, if we ever had a chance, I wanted to write scripture verses on the door frames, walls, and foundation of our home.

With the drywall going up very shortly, we knew we had a narrow window to get in there and be able to write on the studs and door frames, so on May 6th, we did just that.

We picked out some of our favorite verses.  Ones that meant a lot to us or that we had been praying over our house.  Ones for those just stopping by, and ones for our future kiddos.  We ended up with a list of about 100 verses and/or passages of scripture.  They were all written within the walls of our home.  Although they will be hidden, and most people will never know they are there, we pray that they will bless anyone who enters our home and those who will live in it after us.

We tried to place each one is a specific spot that it was related to.  For instance the one we are writing in the picture below was in our closet.

“²² Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.” Luke 12:22-23

And the one below was on the doorway to our master bedroom.

^“19 We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

It took a long time to write each verse, but it was worth every second knowing that God’s word is at the very core of the house.

And that everywhere we go/sit/talk/entertain, God’s word will be there and His promises are all around us.

As exciting as it is to build a house and to see the progress each week, this was by far the most exciting part to me.  More than anything, we want our home to be a safe haven and a refuge to all who enter it.  We want it to feel warm and welcoming.  We want to have an open door policy at all times.  We want it to feel different to others.  But, most importantly, we want people to come to know the Lord there.

One of the cool things about having the scripture written is that the workers and anyone who walks through the house will see it and can read all of the passages that are everywhere.  Not long after this, we went to the house and on the fireplace someone (we are assuming a worker) wrote:

“Praise the Lord with all your heart!”

We were so excited that someone was affected by and wanted to add to the scriptures we had written.  It was such a sweet blessing to us.

In addition to this, we met with Brent and he told us that some of the workers were asking who wrote all of the scriptures and he told them that it was probably the homeowners.  He said, “usually the steal things from us, so it’s nice to have it the other way around this time!”  We were thrilled to hear that we were different and that they noticed that.

Even though we do not have kids, or plans to have them in the near future, we hope to live in this house for a long time and raise our children here.  With that said, we wanted to write verses specifically for them in the rooms that will be theirs.  We picked several out with them in mind and in the picture below, hubs is writing this one:

“¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  Psalm 139:13

Family and friends who are reading:  we are NOT pregnant!!!

Now that that’s taken care of, we can move on…

I didn’t get a picture of it, but on the ceiling of the front porch we wrote the verse that we have been praying over our house from the beginning:

^“8 Lord, I love the house where you live,
    the place where your glory dwells.”  Psalm 26:18

That continues to be our prayer, and even though the Lord doesn’t need verses written in a home to ‘live’ there, I think it will be pretty hard for him not to dwell in our home with His promises all around…and that warms my soul.