Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

Stairs to Nowhere

Most people who build a home want to get it done as quickly as possible. But not Sarah Winchester. She kept her home construction going 24 hours a day for 38 years.

You see Sarah had married William Winchester, whose family owned the gun company that made the repeating rifle that killed so many men in the Civil War.

When Sarah’s daughter died in infancy. And William died of tuberculosis. Sarah was so distraught, she went to a medium, who told her that her family had a terrible curse and was haunted by the ghosts of all those killed by the Winchester rifle. The only way to appease these spirits was to build them a house and never quit building.

So Sarah bought a six room farmhouse on 162 acres in San Jose and kept building onto it for the rest of her life.

She served as her own architect. Every night she would retreat to a séance room for instruction from the spirits. The next morning she’d give the construction workers hand-drawn sketches of what was to be done.

She earned what now would be $20,000 a day so the carpenters went along with her crazy blueprints.

Which turned into a sprawling labyrinth that included stairs to nowhere. Staircases that run into a ceiling. Or in this case, stairs that open to a second-story outside door.

Tonight we’re going to see that just because God gives you a gift (money, family, a good job, a long life), doesn’t mean you will be able to enjoy it. Because God also has to give the ability to enjoy those things.

We try so desperately to escape the mundane emptiness of life. But without God all of our escape routes are just stairs to nowhere.