This month I am looking at a subject very close to my heart. HOUSES Houses

I love houses, every single type.
I love small crumbly cozy little cottages, I love stainless steel urban lofts and everything in between.
I see a house and I immediately think, could I live there? What would I do to change it, to make it mine?
When we rent or borrow houses, I often move furniture about just for fun.
I love houses, I did a degree in how to manage them, build them, and buy and sell them. I feel passionate about homelessness
Houses are in my blood.
However, it’s not surprising that houses too have been the subject of many of my serious conversations with God. It’s the place where I have seen my own selfish motives bubbling up. It’s the one thing that has caused me more heartbreak and heart examinations. It’s been the area where I have had to give up on my expectations and my creativity, and the place I had to let my dreams and natural personality die.

When Mike was training for ministry, I spent a few months trying to persuade him to be a teacher rather than a vicar. My very reasonable argument was that if he was vicar, we would be poor and that I would never own my own house. In the Church of England, they give you a tied house and don’t pay you enough to buy another one. You see, it mattered to me; it was running fast and furious though my blood lines and straight into my head and then out of my mouth. Perfect logic to me.
No surprise. Mike was not able to see my clearly laid out plan. He became what he always said he would become. A vicar, a pastor.
So we got a job, a great job with really bad housing, and that was the start of a whole long list of houses that we were given and expected to be grateful for. I tried to be grateful; I even sometimes managed to sound grateful, but the lack of choice was the thing that got to me every time. I think this is a common delusion amongst 21st century western women. We all think that choice is our birthright and that it will make us happy. It actually never says that in the Bible. Nowhere. Believe me I’ve looked.
So we moved a lot, each time to houses that someone else owned and chose things for us, e.g. the color of the paint on the house or the type of flooring, the kitchen cabinets, the size of the toilets and the number of bathrooms we were allowed to have. Not to mention there is only ever one house that goes with one job. No choice at all.
Despite some opposition from the institution, every single house we made our home. We invested time, money and effort into making it look and feel like ours.
So mainly I was happy with them. But inside I still felt my choices had been limited and my expectations of what my life would look like did not match up. Again my heart felt like an earthquake hit it with every choice taken away, and the fault lines were showing.
I argued with God and tried to wrestle the dissatisfaction out of my world. It didn’t work for long.
I gave up thinking about it all, I thought I had wrapped it up and thrown it away.
Finally one day totally unexpected it hit me again, knocking me off my balance so much so I had no choice but to give myself up to is abundant Grace and Mercy and let that seep into my blood instead. I then became content. It was settled.
Then the landscape changed again and we had a new job in Little Rock, USA and the miraculous possibility of buying a house. After we choose it and bought it, I danced around that house being thankful daily for the unexpected gift this home was to me in an unexpected place.
We made it ours with paint and renovations, but within 18 months we were clearly called back the the UK, back to the feudal system and back to someone else owning my home again.
The question I asked myself when I knew this was going to happen was, How lightly did I hold the gift I had been given? How deep and how far had the Grace blood gone? Had it gone all the way through me, had it got to my heart?
We sold that sweet Arkansas house the day we returned to Sheffield, and I never looked back. I arrived back and my hands were empty, I had let it go, ready to pick up whatever was handed me.
I truly loved our new home, the vicarage, the house up the long driveway with the large kitchen and full of family and friends, now full of memories.
I fully lived in it. I also danced in this kitchen, I danced knowing this was a gift too. Chosen specially for me by a wonderful loving heavenly Father who loves to give good gifts to his children. I can dance to that song daily.
Since then in the last 8 years we have had 3 homes, each one different, each one a miraculous gift. For each one I am thankful.
What I have learned through this love affair with houses is that He is faithful even when I rant and rage. He is faithful even when I cannot be, because of unrealistic expectations or because of unrealistic hopes. He stands waiting for me to turn around and then gives me all I need.
Not necessarily all I expected or dreamed of, but definitely all I need.
2 Corinthians 12v9, “my Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness”
And I still really love houses.