Living Simply In a Bigger House…What I Am Filling My House With These Days

Sometimes I look around and I feel guilty. The simple girl who longed for nothing more than a tiny house, simple at most, with lots of land…has ended up in more square footage than she dreamed. I had always said I’d be happy with just my family, wherever the Lord took us. A bigger house meant more to clean and more to take care of. I just needed enough.

“Maybe a better layout…” I would think. In our old house, we loved to have families over. We host a family Bible study night regularly with about 20 people and since many of our friends have large families, just one family over means a big group! Often when we had those family nights, eating took place in shifts because there just wasn’t room in the kitchen for all of us. We always had a great time, but it was crowded!

When God led us to this house, just about a month and half ago, I felt like I was dreaming. The land is picture perfect. We have the property we have always dreamed of. And then there’s the house…it is more than I ever asked for…yet God gave it to us. Now, it is not a mansion by any means, but it is more room for us than we ever looked for.

And here, I feel guilty. 

And as I sat this past weekend watching my house fill up for my husband’s 40th birthday party…it truly hit home. We had about 50 people in the house, and it was comfortable. There was a nice flow, and we weren’t huddled in the kitchen..and I realized God gave me more…so I can DO more. 

I can only imagine the family nights to come...the teenagers that will pass through this place many a Friday nights…the summers that will fill our property with people….because we are all about relationships. And God gave us more, so we can pursue more. Having more isn’t necessarily a greed thing or a bad thing…He knows my heart…and I would have been content in a tiny home. Yet, He gave me more…

So the question I ask now, is not… “Is this too much?” 
but… 
“What will I do, with what He has given…”

And I know the answer. A full home for me is a full heart. I will use it to fill it with people, pursuing relationships and real things. Not to fill it with needless trinkets or treasures that fade…but with memories, and people, and love, and HIM.

The kids and I talked about storing up treasures in heaven today in school. We also talked about fixing our eyes on the unseen and how the temporal will pass away.

Yes, this house is temporal I told them…but what we do with it, will be eternal.

Even Mama is zip lining…and having fun! Looking forward to lots more memories here!