Sometimes my wife just wears me down. For the last sixteen years we’ve lived in Ontario, 2 ½ hours from Toronto, and Lily has said she would like to visit Casa Loma (http://www.casaloma.org). I wouldn’t say she has insisted on going, but she’s suggested it with a really big smile, batting her eyelids and stretching out the word “please” for a long time.
It’s not like she’s never been, she just wanted to go again – together. I’ve put her off many times, but recently we were in Toronto for our anniversary and were looking for one more thing to do before we came home.
She had me at a weak moment. I had very little options, no alternate plan, and if I wanted to keep those romantic anniversary feelings from crashing on the rocks, I needed to cave on this one. In the end, it wasn’t a bad choice of activities.
If you know nothing of Casa Loma, it is this enormous home built at the turn of the 20th century. It’s not a castle but it looks like it could be a castle. And if you owned it and lived in it you would feel you lived in a castle. Now, however, it’s a great money-making tourist attraction for the city of Toronto. The day we went they made thousands of dollars; there were people everywhere.
It has 98 rooms, secret passages, gardens, and an underground tunnel to the stables. Still, I figured, if we went through the rooms quickly (the way I like to go through show homes when Lil gets the opportunity to drag me through them), we could be done in an hour.
But Lil wanted to get the self-guided tour with a phone-like device giving a commentary on all the features of the house – yes, all 98 rooms. As soon as they slapped one of those devices in my hand, I knew we were going to be putting an offer in to buy the place. This was not going to be a short in and out viewing!
What I found interesting from all the commentaries was the background on the owner, Henry Pellatt. The commentary painted him as a generous, wealthy, kind man. At one time he controlled one quarter of the wealth in Canada. The home he built was supposed to cost about $500,000 but ended up costing $3.5 million, a hefty price for 1911.
Then one thing after another happened to Henry: he lost a lot of money when the government took his electric power company from him without compensation; the stock market crashed; and he made some deals that didn’t work out. In the end, he was bankrupt, and the city took ownership of Casa Loma due to back taxes owed to the tune of $27 million in 1933.
Henry ended up penniless. When he died, at the age of 80, he was living in a room in the home of his former chauffeur. His son hadn’t even taken him in. … A magnificent house, a sad story.
Here’s the thing: If for almost or all of your life things go your way, but you die without a saving relationship with Christ, your life ends up to be just a very sad story. Jesus came to turn any life – good or bad – into a great story … and that’s worth checking out while you’re still living out your story.
Until Next Time!
Pastor Paul
Question: What kind of story will your life tell when its done? Leave your comment below