Why Make a Home?
Hello! This week, I want to share with you the current results of a life lesson that has been hard-won.
Look! I have things on my walls!! Isn’t that the most wonderful thing that you have ever seen?
It’s okay if it’s not. It is for me. This may seem like a little thing to be getting so excited about, but learning to appreciate hanging pictures on the wall has been part of a long and arduous journey. I don’t have the same knack for decorating that my mother and some of my sisters have, and it used to seem like a chore, just one more thing on the list to do. It stressed me out to imagine trying to pick “the right things” and make it look nice and so on and so forth. So, I didn’t feel much of a yearning to do much with any walls that were mine to do with. On top of that, I had another, more major learning curve to navigate.
All my growing up, all I ever wanted was to get married. No desire at all for further schooling or a career or anything else for me – I wanted to be a wife and a stay-at-home mom. It would be perfect – I would start dating someone when I was sixteen, marry him when I was eighteen, and it would all be fixed. No more schooling, no need for a job, all would be well and I could just stay home and be a wife and mom all day. The day that it dawned on me that my perfect plan was, in fact, fatally flawed and not going to happen was the first day of a six year spiral into depression, hopelessness, and despair. I couldn’t find any point in doing anything if it wasn’t for a husband. None. After six years, I finally started to pull out of it, thanks in full to the merciful, long-suffering Lord above and the loved ones he made sure I was surrounded with when I was ready to let go of my pain and my fear and submit to his will, not mine. It’s been a long, slow process coming out of all of that, and I wouldn’t return to that part of my life for anything.
In 2022, I moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment with my sister. I was moving forward – living a life instead of waiting for the one I wanted. Keeping up with people outside of myself and finding ways to serve others. Finding purpose in living as a Christian rather than the embrace of a man and the supposed ease of the stay-at-home wife life. (Part of this was realizing how naive that notion was – good grief, did I learn nothing from watching my own mother all my life?) I had walls that were mine to do with as I pleased, space to organize as I saw fit, a thermostat that I could set to whatever temperature wouldn’t bankrupt me. For a while, I did little to nothing as far as decorating. I kept it tidy, because it needed to be functional, but I didn’t decorate, I didn’t make it look comfortable or cozy or put together. I didn’t hang anything on the walls. To me, decorating would make it feel like I was here to stay. I wasn’t ready to commit so hard yet to the single life that was my reality at the time. I wasn’t ready to see that my sister and I needed the comfort of a made-up home as much as any husband ever would. I wasn’t ready to give up the next piece of my shattered dream. Eventually, I did. I hung things on the walls; I even bought pieces of furniture. My sister and I made our apartment feel more like a home – a place to sit and stay awhile. It was more freeing than I can express.
Halfway through the year, love fell into my lap, or so it felt. Almost as soon as I had learned to let go of the apron-strings of my desire and to live for Christ and for others where I was, as I was, the man of my dreams came in and began to heal my heart of the loneliness I had felt for years, as I did for him. Once I had stopped idolizing marriage, the Lord saw fit to give it to me. And now I’m married to him.
And this week, we put pictures up on our walls.
Why make a home? Because we need a home, single or otherwise. We need to have a place to rest and feel settled, to feel at peace when the outside world is chaotic. Putting some decorations out, making the pieces look nice and put together, it makes the place look loved and lived in, like the owner cares about the space and wants to be in it. They can bring some joy when viewed, can be reminders of memories and moments, can show you and others that you enjoy and appreciate living. Take joy in where you are so you don’t drown in a sea of “could be”s and “what if”s and “instead of”s.
Some parting scriptures for you, friend – Psalm 37:3-8; Hebrews 10:22-25; Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
In Christian love, Jo.
