“Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need.”
This quote spoke volumes to me. We live in a rental house that just doesn’t quite meet our family’s needs (or so I think). When we moved in, we were just thrilled to find someplace where the landlord would allow us to keep our dog and our four kids! The truth is, I’ve had renter’s mentality. I’ve been here over a year and haven’t really made the place ours. It just seems so temporary. It actually is now because the landlord has put it up for sale. Well, tonight I am repenting. I am choosing to be happy where I am right now for as long as God wants me here. I have a feeling that’s a choice I may have to make over and over; but, I have to start somewhere. ~smile~
Miss Tami at Joyful Noise shared the quote above and a lovely post about home here. I think you will like her home loving writing.
God bless!
Laura
Happy at Home
Laura of Harvest Lane Cottage 
Hi Laura, I too live in a rental. I didn’t think I would be here quite this long, but tomorrow will start our fourth year here! It is quite small and inexpensive, and thankfully the Lord has helped us to be more and more content with it each year.
It takes a little while to settle into a place. Fortunately, what makes us feel most at home is being with the people we love, right?
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Laura,
Thank you for the kind words. I too am guilty of not always being content. I long for a big piece of land with a little farmhouse and lots of room to run, with giant gardens and lots of critters…….A longing I daily give to the Lord, and ask that He grows me where I am planted. We have lived in our little home on our little parcel for 14 years. I really am so grateful and humbled by the luxury God allows us to live in compared with other parts of the world. I am most content to be in God’s will and to be where He wants me. That is the greatest blessing. In God’s Love, Tami
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Ohh, I am so behind on my blog reading Laura. Work has just been manic lately with the wedding coming up and all. It’s always something. I love this quote that you have used today. Todd and I will never be able to own our home. It’s just too expensive to buy over here. I like to think that home is wherever I hang my heart and wherever Todd is, my heart is. 🙂
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Laura,
Thank you for the kind words. I too am guilty of not always being content. I long for a big piece of land with a little farmhouse and lots of room to run, with giant gardens and lots of critters…….A longing I daily give to the Lord, and ask that He grows me where I am planted. We have lived in our little home on our little parcel for 14 years. I really am so grateful and humbled by the luxury God allows us to live in compared with other parts of the world. I am most content to be in God’s will and to be where He wants me. That is the greatest blessing. In God’s Love, Tami
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Oh Laura, home is what you make it, and any place can be home. Hang in there, your dream home will come. Right now is a buyers market with tons of loans for first time home buyers, my 23 yr. son just bought a house in Dec. with no money down and little finance. Check into it with a good realtor, doesn’t hurt!
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Hi, Laura!
Reading this post brought back a flood of old memories. In May of 1996 we left our home in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs and moved to Liberal, Missouri. Back home, my husband worked for the City of Blue Springs and we lived a 5 bedroom home…complete with all the comforts of life…wall-to-wall carpeting, central air, central heat, dishwasher, garbage disposal…the whole nine yards. (Close to the grocery store and Wal-mart!!!! We’re 20 miles from either one now!) We left it all to come here to start this ministry.
We moved into a tiny, little rental home out in the country that was slated to be bulldozed. It had two, small bedrooms, a livingroom, a kitchen, and then a back porch and an old summer kitchen block house out back. It was 612 square feet and there were 8 of us at the time.
The house was old and the kitchen ceiling leaked. It was so bad that the ceiling had a hole in it and I put up plastic to run the water out of the kitchen though the back porch and on out a window. (Of course, the landlord wouldn’t do anything…it wasn’t worth doing anything to…and we sure didn’t have the money to do anything else.) The kitchen floor was falling in and there was no heat, so we put up a wood stove.
For years I kept saying…well…we’re not going to be here long anyway and I didn’t spend much time trying to do anything with it. All I wanted was out of there! I wanted better…but I wasn’t taking care of what the Lord had given me. We were stuck in that ramshackle house for almost 7 years!!!
Finally…(I am a slow learner when it comes to some things)…I realized that if I didn’t start taking SOME action…NOTHING was going to change! I started where I was and did what I could with what I had to work with. I got creative! I camoflaged and covered. We rearranged and painted.
Sure enough! As soon as we started doing what WE could…the Lord took over and MIRACUOUSLY…boom! Out of the clear blue and, almost without notice, we landed in a new (new=to=us anyway) house!
Now…the house we landed in was not a big house, but was bigger than what we had been in…and it was clean and everything worked. There were no leaks or rotting floors and ceilings. And was warm in the winter!!!! (We nearly froze to death out there year after year in the old house!)
Six years later, I am still grateful for my little house! It’s still a miracle to me! Some mornings I get up and I STILL can’t believe it! (We moved in here May 15 of 2002.) And the best part of it is…IT’S OURS! God did a real number here! He opened the strangest doors in the weirdest places to put us here and the price and the terms were unbelievable!
Don’t look at what you see around you, Laura. Try to see what it COULD be. Start where you’re at and do what you can with what you have. God will take care of the rest!
Have a great weekend, my friend! God’s blessings upon you!
All My Love,
~Rebecca
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