07 April 2014

Home

“For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.

That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.

But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions.” 2 Corinthians 5:1-9


This post is long overdue. And just long.
But I thought that some of you coming to visit might be interested in seeing your accommodations!

Eight months later, and we have boxes unpacked, pictures unhung, and items missing. We sold our washer and dryer over a month ago (because our place came with a set), and Hubs found the movers had packed things inside the dryer. Other military wives with multiple moves are saying, "And...?" In other words this is normal. This time seems a little different though. It took me six months to experience the nesting bug that people and pregnancy websites keep talking about. This major move has left us less at home than any of our others. We miss our Florida home and have our fingers crossed and prayers sent up to move back there after our commitment here. Already looking forward to that end and with a possible deployment in sight, this station has been our longest commitment, but feels more temporary than any of the ones before. With that said, we are super excited about the potential here in Alaska and look forward to our many adventures in the next two and a half years!

We are completely grateful for this house. Besides the embarrassingly thin walls between units and waaaay too much room for our small family, it has already been such a blessing. Hubs can walk to work, come home after PT and for lunch, and we are completely content having one car. While I'm not a fan of having more room than we use, I am thrilled we have plenty of room to comfortably host Eli's excited aunts, grandparents, and great-grandparents possibly coming to meet our baby boy.  I'm trying to get rooms ready before I'm too big to bend down!

We have a heated, one-car garage and a full basement. All those unpacked boxes I mentioned have a hiding place. He he he! All the easier to not unpack them, my dear. They keep company with Holiday decor, summer stuff, and all things Army. Here are a few pics of the rest of our place. Extra points for finding Jessie. I swear I didn't tell her to pose. She did it all on her own.


Downstairs

Entry/Hallway

We live in townhouse-type housing. This is the entry to the house. The door you see is the one to the garage. The front door is just to the right by the blue rug. Opposite the garage door is a coat closet. The living room is behind me, and the door to the basement is to my immediate left. Past that door on the left is the hallway. It has the half-bath and leads to the kitchen.

Living & Dining


Kitchen


Upstairs
Clockwise from the top of the stairs: the master bedroom & bath, the nursery, and the guest bath are on the left. The laundry room is right across at the top of the stairs. To the right is the guest room, a linen closet, and another bedroom that we use as an office. It is plenty big enough to be a second guest room if we have several people visiting here at once.

Master



Guest Bath


Laundry


Guest Room

Office 


Home is a funny place. That word can carry many meanings and memories. For me, that word carries the hope of something more than all this. This house is not our home. Our house in FL wasn't. Our house in NC wasn't. Even the familiar comforts in the places we grew up isn't. Heaven is. Don't you just yearn for it? I do, some days more than others.

Leaving the last place we called home and not feeling particularly at home here sort of feels like an injury. And there are certainly components of the last months that add a hefty dose of insult, but there is something incredible that happens in feeling homeless, feeling homesick, that really ignites the edges of that hole in us that is meant for more. God created us for heaven. We are meant to crave, meant to feel a longing. It is one thing to know this in my head and another to know the raw throb of that feeling in my heart. It reminds me that I’m alive and I’m eternal. I’m grateful for the incomparable power of who God is and what He becomes when there is less comfort, less knowing, less of me. I’m certainly not pretending that our circumstances hold a candle to any injustice. But I am under the revelation that God draws us near in the desert. And the comfort of “normal” starts to seem like something that can work to coddle and cope if we don’t directly engage the issue of eternal perspective and Christ-centered relationship.

This transient lifestyle has emphasized for me just how temporary our stuff and our stay is. But I see glimpses of our unity in the Spirit that will be perfected when Christ comes through relationship and community that God has structured for our sanctification and support as we live within the broken and the fallen. Marriage and family are temporary blessings God has designed for us to endure it together. We who claim Christ are the Church. His body. To care for each other and be able go out from each other to care for everyone else. To be His hands and His feet. It so imperfectly symbolizes His pursuit of relationship with us. His pursuit of our hearts.

But we have forever in our future- where homesickness and homelessness and distant or broken relationship will not exist. So we choose courage over comfort. We choose boundaries over barriers. And we choose mercy over mess-ups. We choose to take up our cross, not our swords. We choose to be vulnerable, to walk in humility and commit to compassion with God as our avid and just Protector. We choose what He desires over what we think we deserve. We choose to know our real enemy, and we choose to know it is not each other. We choose to accept exactly where we are because God loves us here and uses us here. Even if we don't agree or don't like it or didn't plan it. We don't make progress first. He uses us first and works it for good toward exactly who He has made us to be. And sometimes that looks entirely different than what we think it should. So we choose not to blame each other but be still and know that God is good, even if our circumstance or our home or our relationship isn't. That, Loved One, is His promise.

We choose to let His Spirit discern between what's meant to be a cave, 
what's meant to be a cocoon, and what's simply meant for when Christ comes back.

We wait expectantly with this hope together and we will not find our security or our safety or our fulfillment in our houses or with our stuff or in our jobs or even in each other. In Christ alone. All other ground is sinking sand. 



3 comments:

  1. I agree...beautifully said! I picked up this saying somewhere along the way..."I will not live for what this world has to offer anymore. All I want is Jesus." This sits on my desk at work as a reminder that we have so much more than the world has to offer and in hopes that I will keep my focus on Him.

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  2. PS. Love the house and I can't wait to see it in person!!
    PPS. Jessie is a trip...she has definitely marked her territory.

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