The Habitat House on Millbrook Lane

In 2019, Maria Gonzalez and her three children moved into a Habitat for Humanity home on Millbrook Lane in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over four hundred volunteers had spent nine months framing walls, wiring outlets, and laying tile so her family could have a stable place to live. On move-in day, she ran her fingers along the kitchen doorframe and noticed initials carved into the wood by the crew who built it.

That house changed how Maria lived. She did not just maintain it — she honored it. She replaced filters on schedule, sealed the deck each spring, kept the garden beds weeded. When a friend asked why she was so meticulous, Maria said something that stuck with everyone who heard it: "I can't trash what somebody else bled for. People gave up their Saturdays, their vacations, their aching backs so we could have this. Every time I take care of this house, I'm saying thank you."

Paul tells the Corinthians that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit — not structures they built for themselves, but dwellings purchased at an extraordinary price. "You are not your own," he writes. "You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." Like Maria tracing those initials in the doorframe, we are invited to remember whose hands built this life we inhabit, and to live in a way that says thank you.