Little House and the Spacious Place

We had walked through rooms and discussed floor plans and used lots of imagination. We smiled and nodded and explained big things in four-year-old sized words to our ever curious daughter. Well, Selah sized words anyway. Ok, we ended up discussing the potential move with her like the miniature adult that she was and is.

Even so, she pointed it out right away, the only unchangeable factor of our prospective home.

"Um, I don't like it because this is not big enough for our whole family!"

We were concerned this would be difficult for her. Going from a home that typically has a minimum of ten people swirling about to a household with three- a dad gone to work, a busy mama and a toddling mess of trouble that she calls baby godzilla- oh yes, there would be adjustment.

No daily dose of doting Aunts and Grandparents, no backyard of grass and green and trees.

But I encouraged her with promised tea parties, and fed imagination with stories full of what if and how about...

The remodel was a long year and couple of months and the move happened several bags full at a time. Still, it snuck up on me. One night we just didn't go back home. I mean, back to my parents home.

It's not the goodbye I was expecting.

And here we are, in this home that's "not big enough" for the whole family. But this barely thousand square foot place can feel so empty. Not in a sad or lonely way... just... spacious.

All the roar and romp these two girls of five and one can muster just doesn't fill it. The neighbors might disagree. I think the husband probably does too.

But Selah is fine, very happy even. I have discovered in these two long weeks that by far I am the one with the most complicated needs in the house. The girls and husband are easy breezy.

I have to continually go to the Surgeon, and the Counselor is always with me. For chronic attitude adjustments , the nagging, aching, frustrating perfectionism, my harsh, stiff neck and knees that I'm stretching to bend daily, hourly. I am beat up by expectations I didn't even know I had. And how, oh how, am I going to keep food from going bad?

I am the main home-maker now. Me. This home. These children. This husband. Now is the time. It is here.

And I think about this space He's brought me to, this swath of earth where I'll pray most my prayers, fighting battles from the kitchen sink and bedroom floor on my knees with face in hands.

It is here I'll spend most of my hours, working out my ambition of a quiet life, holy and set apart for Him.

And it is good, this spacious place. Now is the time for listening for His whispering echos that breeze through the window above the kitchen sink. Now is a time to glean from children how to ask questions and learn the language of the Word. Now is a time for being still and sitting at His feet. We've invited Him, welcomed Him, and have given Him back this home He's given to us.

So much has changed. But He is the same. His stability keeps me sane, peaceful.

It is good.

"He brought me out into a spacious place...I love you, O LORD, my strength."

~from Ps. 18