But if the priest comes to examine it and the mold has not spread after the house has been plastered, he shall pronounce the house clean, because the defiling mold is gone.  To purify the house he is to take two birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop.  He shall kill one of the birds over fresh water in a clay pot.  Then he is to take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet yarn and the live bird, dip them into the blood of the dead bird and the fresh water, and sprinkle the house seven times.  He shall purify the house with the bird’s blood, the fresh water, the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet yarn.  Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields outside the town. In this way he will make atonement for the house, and it will be clean. -Leviticus 14: 48-53

This is a retelling of a procedure of “atonement” that was the subject of yesterday’s post.  The only real difference here is the cleansing is happening to a house rather than a person who has a skin disease.  The house in this passage has molds, which we learned can be spreading and defiling or not.  The solution was the same mixture of herbs and animal sacrifice described previously.  The idea of a house being unclean is a bit strange but I have had some experience with this.

Our first house that we purchased we bought from a single older woman who was partially handicapped.  We learned later that the reason she was handicapped was that her husband had actually tried to kill her in the house we were purchasing.  The events that had transpired in the house made us very uneasy so we decided that we should have a house blessing to try to remove the negative spiritual “mold” that we felt was affecting the house.  We did not invest in birds, cedar, and hyssop, but we did invite several christian friends and we stood in a circle in living room and asked for God’s blessing on the house and invited Him to come dwell with us.  He did.  We have many amazing stories of God blessing our family while we were in that house.

Probably one of the most memorable stories was when “God’s gutter service” showed up. My wife and I were kind of dirt poor then.  I had just finished graduate school and we did not have a lot of disposable income.  We had a little one on the way, our gutters needed painting, and they also never drained right so we decided to take them all down to paint them.  What we failed consider before taking them down is that it takes a fair amount of skill and experience to rehang gutters.  We were in over our head.  We had no money to hire someone and this was before the days of YouTube.  We decided to take a break and pray about it.  We left the house to do something, I can’t recall where we went.  When we returned to our house the gutters were all installed!  We asked our neighbor about it and she said a white truck had pulled up and some men installed the gutters and then left.  We never got a bill and never found out exactly why our gutters were installed that day…we were just thankful that “God’s gutter service” came through for us.

Prayer: God bless our homes and all the living and loving that occurs in them.  Help us to take time to pray about our needs so that you can amaze us.