I'm not sure it's okay to love a house as much as I love this house! But it is perfect for our family, both our needs and our wants, and I have enjoyed every minute of living here. It's hard to think of it as God's provision, since I'm always of aware of those who aren't similarly provided for, but I can say that I feel constantly grateful.
The two things I love most: Because of the open floor plan, we are all together, even when we're doing different things. Someone's in the kitchen, someone else is working at the kitchen table, and someone else is watching TV--and we're all together. For a family with two teenagers, that's a big deal. The other thing I love is also due to the openness--Last night we had the staff and their spouses over for dinner and everything was just so easy--the warmth, the flow, the laughter, partly because we could all be in the same room without having to sit on top of each other. I love it.
My Sunday School class was here for breakfast earlier this week and I looked around at these young couples and thought about how much they need each other and watched them milling around, getting acquainted in ways we just can't do at church and I was so grateful for a place to help make this happen. Later that day, one of them came back, tearful, to talk about her marriage, and we were able to move into the tiny front room to talk, where she could have privacy and safety. Did I mention that this is a perfect house?
Now we're working on hosting a cookout for the cul-de-sac and getting some couples from church together that we know need to meet each other and having dinner for some of the folks that I met on my trip to London who are now here in Austin. So far, everyone who has been here has been someone I already care about, someone who is more or less easy to love, but I'm looking ahead to the day when the people around our table may be more broken, more needy, more difficult to care about. I know from experience how hard that is, and feel an inner resistance to it and a calling as well.
So, since I don't have anywhere else to go today, I'll be here, all day, in my wonderful house, enjoying every minute of it.
1 comment:
There's nothing better than having a nice place that you can retreat too. We had a get-together at our house a couple of weeks ago, and it was so great to have people in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and backyard, but it still felt like we were all together.
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