As I type this, we have been in our new home nine nights and my world is an organized state of chaos.
I never dreamed we would own a home where I can see no neighbors from our windows. My running route now includes cows, farms, cornfields, and lots of trees. We are so blessed and thankful for this gift of a home. I’m truly amazed.
I will be straight with you, however- this gift was quite overwhelming to me the first week. Beyond the physical exhaustion of cleaning and unpacking, my thoughts were insanely doing laps in my head as I surveyed the enormous living area we now owned. Maybe to others our home is not large, but this is the biggest house we’ve ever lived in. I started to stress out about decorating. Yes… home decor: buying quality focal points and somehow smearing charm all over the walls. It hasn’t really bothered me before now that I don’t have a decorating “style”. Yet as my hands unpacked Tupperware and later scrubbed sinks, my mind tossed back and forth. Country chic? Bold and understated? Victorian? Viking era? Minimalist? Industrial? It may seem crazy… but I was truly losing my mind. I was afraid that I would not be able to make this home worthy; that I would come up lacking if I didn’t decorate and display our new home adequately. I felt like my worth was somehow tied to making this new home beautiful.
This is where God stopped my slippery downward pity party. “There is no fear in love.” He loves me and there is no fear in Love. Any fear my thoughts generated were not coming from a place of love and they were not coming from my Creator.
Since my husband and I got married, my criteria for our home decor has been “joy and peace”. Does a color choice inspire joy and peace? Then it goes on the walls. Does a piece of art or a chair inspire joy and peace? Then it is added to our living room. Granted, this can sometimes be tricky living as a couple. Sometimes what inspires joy for me evokes a groan from Hubby. And sometimes his idea of “peace” is my idea of, “how about we just don’t”? It’s a compromise… but our previous homes have represented our joy and our peace.
This home will be no different. It is our forever home and owning vs. renting does seem a little more intimidating to me. Simply because this one is permanent doesn’t mean it’s more important than every other place we’ve rented across the country. A home is a home. And this home will continue to display our joy and peace. We’ll smear it on the floors, hang it on the walls, cook it in the kitchen, sing it in the shower, eat it at the table, and laugh about it all around. Joy and Peace, friends. I wish you Joy and Peace.
