Verse 10, in reference to Abraham, says "For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God."
And verses 13-16 say "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as is it, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be their God, for he has prepared for them a city."
These verses, and many more, forced me to consider the fleeting situation of house-hunting, both in perspective of my own life and of eternity. How much more glorious will it be to find the home we've been longing for our entire lives? And how much better will my death be when I change my perspective and seek to greet that day with joy and expectation, rather than fear of loss? I can only hope and pray for God to grant me the perspective that will enable me to face death with courage and excitement.
I know that might seem crazy to some of you, but our death truly is the day we find genuine freedom. However, that's not what this blog post is all about. I actually wanted to just give a house update!
We moved officially last Friday and need to be completely finished moving out of the old house by Tuesday. I don't think Mark or I have ever been so happy, excited, and grateful to move. Not just to end the cycle of searching, but because it really feels like home to us (as much as a house on earth can). The paint we chose was a bit more "cool" of a shade of grey than we thought, but once we put furniture in and stared to get a few things hung up on the walls, it looks completely fine. Yes, next time we'll err on the side of being too warm, but it really is lovely, and much better than the dark green that previously covered the walls.
Also, once we were getting all our furniture in place, we started noticing that the ceilings were a lot higher than we realized, and the area in general was a lot bigger than we thought! Let me tell you, after downsizing almost three years ago, then moving to a rental that was quite a big step down from our previous house, moving into this home has been quite a treat. We had only seen it dark, dirty, and vacant, so we didn't realize how big some of the rooms were, and we are so grateful for such a fabulous space.
I am totally planning to host fun events and parties at our house, so if you're local, invite yourself over sometime! We still have quite a bit of unpacking and organizing to do, but we're making good progress and I hope to have most of the house looking good before Asher's birthday coming up in March. I cannot wait to be able to spend time writing instead of packing, cleaning, and unpacking. Moving is always so much harder and so much more work than I remember (even though we just did it in August), and Mark and I both hope to stay in this place for a long time.
Now the good stuff, you want pictures right? Once it gets more cleaned up I will take some better pictures, but here are a few to give you an idea of what the last two weeks have looked like for us :)
Before anything really got moved in, it was hard to tell how much would fit in my homeschool area back there...
Um, yeah, a couch and table and chairs and bench... bigger than we thought!
That island counter is still cluttered, but it's getting cleaner every day.
Finding new places for all our art and decor!
The sport court has been the perfect place for Jovi to ride her tricycle and bike! All the kids love the backyard, and get this... turf! No mud = very happy mama on laundry days :)
We had issues with figuring out we needed to secure the washer's water tube and flooded the laundry room twice in one day. We ended up with super minimal damage, and I ended up blow drying the carpet here to get the rest of that moisture out. Fun times.
Me conquering Con-tact paper... one of the few DIY projects I can handle.
The pantry transformation! It turned out so nice, I'm really glad I did this before we moved in.
So there you have it, a tiny snapshot of my life the last week! Tell me you are going to visit? We are ready for a stellar year, where we can settle in, get invested in the people here, and enjoy opening our home for fellowship and fun. Thanks for peeking here into my life on the blog - come back later this week for another post. I know, two in one week?! I'm excited to be working more and more on my writing projects, and I hope you will benefit from them as well. Have a great week, and talk soon!
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