Temporary. That’s how I have come to see the places we have made home. As though by seeing something as temporary it will suddenly hurry you along to a place of permanence. The logic is skewed, yet this longing for permanence rather real. Or perhaps call it what it is- the search for permanence is really just an affront to discontentment.
Though I have learned of this a great deal and have poured myself into gratitude as an intentional working out of any longings for something different.How easy to idealize what we do not have, and yet how quickly such romanticized views can diminish the beauty of all that we have been given.
Today I hung these sweet yet simple fox and sheep prints in our girls’ bedroom, though first hung in our firstborn’s nursery in another townhome.This would seem insignificant, and yet these whimsical prints have sat in the closet since our most recent move as if to solidify our temporary-ness.
Only today did I realize how foolish of me. To consider a house, of which I am deeply grateful and rather fond of, not permanent enough to be adorned with touches of home.
These are the walls that we brought Sadie home to. These are the walls that have held gatherings of laughter and tears. These are the walls that have reminded us of the extraordinary provision of our Maker. How long we are here is of no consequence. This is home.
I shared the above sentiment only a few days ago as a post on social media, and found rather immediately that they resonated with far more than myself. A few simple responses brought this to light. One response in particular read this:
“I have lived with this mindset so much and it robbed me of the day (years) at hand. I can so relate to this.”
Robbed. Jordan and I have used this term before in moments of reflecting on our years together, as we met each other rather soon after college and it seems that’s when conversations of home, aspirations, and the like seemed to take root. Although the soil itself was being tilled well before that. It seems I fell rather quickly into what Jordan called the Disney Princess syndrome. Perhaps accurately so, as my favorite song as a child was sung by that of a sixteen year old mermaid who wooed us all with her “… I’ve got plenty. But who cares. No big deal. I want more.” The lens of “more” was one that started in the large eyed longing of a cartoon character, and it seems I was equally lulled, even though my days of princess watching were soon to be far gone.
To truly consider what you have as enough is a very hard truth to live in, and I don’t believe it was in full Ariel’s fault, though she was indeed depicting a very deep aspiration of our culture. For if I wasn’t to be swayed through a Disney character, I would have fallen prey to this ideology elsewhere. Because it’s everywhere. From the question we pose to our children: “What do you want to be when you grow up.” To the answer we pose to our college students: “What’s next?” To the continual question after that: “What’s your dream?”
Now to the determined, passionate, apostolic even, such questions become imperative to a life where we not only choose but pave our own trail. These are the people that build businesses and feed the hungry and steward well enough to provide for their children. Although just like every side, there’s an opposite side, often posing as all the ways that a pure motive can cast a dark shadow. One that we presume is not there, so long as we simply do not turn around. Suddenly the beauty of dreaming and planning and pursuing and hoping becomes discontentment in disguise. Proudly cascading as determination and vigor when in reality the day you have been given has been lost because you are too focused on all that is to come.
Robbed. There is a thief on the other side of want. One looking to convince you that all that is in front of you in actuality is lesser than all that is in front of you in fantasy. Was not our dear little mermaid friend fantasizing a life she did not know at the expense of losing the one she had? Perhaps a sequel more beneficial to our children would have been one where Ariel realized how much she missed her sisters and her Father. Where she experienced sunburn and found swimming oddly difficult. All that she minimized in the hopes of something else merely became the something else that secured her sense of want.
“… I’ve got plenty. But who cares. No big deal. I want more.”
EXPOSITION: A moment of honesty: Where have you been your own thief?
RISE: Wherever there is a dream, or simply a longing for something else, it needs to be grounded with gratitude. For myself, and with a nod to those nursery prints at last taking their place above Sadie’s crib, I long for a home that we feel confident to say is a “forever home”. There is so much story to this one longing, but I have a desperate responsibility to accompany that hope with a deep thankfulness for the house that we call home today. I do not need to diminish my hope, unless such a longing comes at the expense of what I have been given.
Second moment of honesty: Where can you be more diligent in your gratitude? (*hint: most likely where you have robbed yourself.)
DENOUEMENT: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (words penned in a letter from James to the early Christian church)