As the name of my blog indicates, I spend a lot of time thinking about home. Of course, my Heavenly Home is the one that is eternal, so that’s where I need to lay up my treasures, and that’s the one I’m striving for. But in the meantime, I have been given this tiny piece of the here-and-now—this home on the edge of town, this family, this neighborhood—in which to serve Him. And, though this is in the earthly realm, I want the things that happen here to be investments in the Heavenly realm.




Monday, October 3, 2011

{31 Days to Make a House a Home} Day 3 ~ Be At Home Where You Are


Can you be content to make a home right where you are?  Right now? 

Or are you waiting to make a home when you get a bigger or better house?  Or when you can own your own instead of rent?  Or when your house is "finished"?  Or when the remodel is complete?  Or when you reach your goals and find your dream house?

As I ask you those questions, I am remembering times when I struggled with my own answers. 

Although we have lived in the same house for over thirty years, it almost isn't the same house.  When we moved in, it needed Ty.  (As in Ty Pennington of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.")  It was a drafty old farmhouse with windows that rattled when the wind blew.  It had awkward exterior doorways and windows between interior rooms (results of adding on rooms and enclosing porches).  It had crumbling plaster, and kitchen cabinets with doors that would not close, and two electrical outlets in the entire second floor.  It was hot in the summer (no air conditioning) and cold in the winter (no insulation).  A true "handyman's special"!  Some of our relatives thought we were crazy.  (To be totally honest, I thought the same thing myself.  My husband was the handyman with the vision.) 

We had only had one month to make any repairs before we moved in, and we had decided to do a few things to the large farmhouse kitchen.  We laid a new floor, painted the cabinets and trim, and hung up some discounted wallpaper we had found in a clearance bin.  I hand made some cheery red calico placemats for our kitchen table. 

So we moved in with our baby daughter and began to make a home.

We closed some of those awkward exterior-interior doors to the kitchen, and that one room became sort of an efficiency apartment within our mostly unremodeled, unready-to-live-in house.  (Since the room was large, we had a sleeper sofa pulling double duty...sitting area by day, bed by night.)

Back to the questions I asked at the beginning...

No, I am sorry to say, I was not always content.  But thankfully, I did not wait for my dream house before I made my home. 

We continued to decorate and remodel and change and adapt.  We tore out plaster and replaced windows and refinished floors, all the while cooking and cleaning and living and having friends over for dinner (yes!).  We hung wallboard and painted and moved doors around, all the while sewing and scrimping to buy furniture and teaching our children and hanging wreaths on the (moving) doors and even hosting parties now and then.

It was yearsmany yearsbefore our house was mostly what we wanted it to be.  But I am so glad that we did not wait all those years to make our house a real home, a home where we lived and loved and made precious memories. 

Whether you live in a rented house, a small apartment, an old farmhouse, or your dream house...accept it as a gift from God (for right now).  Don't waste the years wishing for something better before you begin to make a house a home.

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But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world,
and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
 
I Timothy 6:6, 7  


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6 comments:

  1. Beautifully written. I love your story and totally agree about fully living in what you have now. We've never waited to entertain or make memories because our house wasn't ready and our life has been richer because of it. Our house will eventually catch up...I think. But even if it never does, it doesn't matter because home is in the heart :) thanks for sharing.

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  2. Amen! You sound like me, it took us 33 years to get the house the way I wanted it, all the while we made it our home. We actually had our house on jacks once while we poured concrete walls for our basement!

    Being content is something I have to work on all the time. It's easy to covet what others have and loose perspective of our what God has given us.

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  3. Wonderful post Cheryl ~ Our house is half remodeled and half not yet so thank you for the great reminder!

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  4. Awesome post, Cheryl! There were many times when I started drooling over decorating magazines and became discontent with what we had... and I still have to be careful!

    And guess what! I had just finished reading that passage in I Timothy this morning before checking blogs! Do you think He's trying to tell me something? :-D

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  5. Thank you so much for the reminder. While I'm definitely not in my dream home I'm trying to making our house homey and striving to be content in the right now.

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  6. Such good advice. A true homemaker can create home anywhere...

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