By Gregory Hansen (2008)
There was a home on a hill
Out of place and abandoned
It was like no other
In design and structure
And it leaned just a bit
It was like a sprinter anticipating
The start of a race
Both rigid and quiver
Occupying one space
I felt sorry for the home. It looked scared. As if it wanted to run and hide.
We were told to stay away
Never EVER go near it!
But — dead flowers to some
Are dry arrangements to others
I felt myself being drawn
Just a bit
As I stepped through its door
I shuddered and gasped
Hundreds of holes in its walls
Each one a borrowed fear
The stories must be true
The holes in the walls enough to prove it
Once a magnificent place
Reduced to sadness all through it
Now I knew why the home looked scared. Everything made sense. There was a feeling of sadness, despair, and loss of hope within its walls.
I then walked out the back door
And a reflection caught my eye
I went over, reached down
Then started to cry
On their way out — a small metal sign
The owner must have dropped
Stunned into disbelief, I read
Gift Shop.
The holes in the walls
Had been misunderstood
There was no evil here
Only hundreds of places to display something good.
I returned the next day with a sign of my own.
It was the least I could do—to offer something back to a place that had carried shame and misunderstanding from the world around it for so long. The sign read, I am Love. It hung alone, and there was a powerful beauty about that solitude. My hope was simple. That if someone else found the courage to venture inside, they would see the sign, set down whatever they had assumed about this place, and find something unexpected waiting for them.
Joy, maybe. Or hope.
I returned several years later to say hello to the old dwelling.
What I found stopped me at the door.
Others had come. Others had stayed long enough to leave something behind. Most of the holes were covered now—small signs left by people I would never meet, each one a quiet answer to the question the house had always been asking.
Love. Peace. I Was Here. Hope. I am Sorry. It Will Be Okay. Home is Where You Are. God is Love.
The house that had been avoided, warned against, misread for years—had become a place people returned to.
Not because it had been repaired.
Because it had been understood.
Looking back, I can’t help but find a resemblance between that home and the way God sees us and each other.
The holes and weaknesses we see in ourselves and in others—the ones we try to hide, the ones people notice from a distance and draw conclusions from—are not what they appear to be.
God sees them differently.
Where we see a hole, He sees a place to insert a nail and display something good. That is where the change begins.
Not in spite of what is broken. Because of it.
Text © 2008, Image © 2026 Gregory Hansen. All rights reserved.