In a few short weeks it will be April, and amazingly it will mean we have been in our new house for 1 year. It seems like just yesterday we packed up our LOADS of Stuff, sadly said goodbye to our beloved neighbors and friends, and moved 5 minutes away (yep, you read that right....5 minutes) to a new neighborhood. Aside from leaving our friends, it was a dream come true to find such an incredible house that we could afford, and a step in the direction we wanted for our family. It was truly a blessing for us, a divinely assisted opportunity. We felt this house was perfect for us...everything we wanted in our current home, but would never be able to afford or change on our own. Everything fell into place beautifully, and we made the leap.
Now, it's not to say that we hated our "old" house. We didn't. We loved where we lived, and that house served us well for 10 wonderful years. We brought our babies home to that house...raised toddlers and created many wonderful, cherished memories as well as made life lasting friendships. The problem was just that we wanted a change...a different layout with more room for growth. We knew we'd never be able to afford some huge upgrade...nor did we really care about that. We just wanted a place to be able to stretch out a bit more. We found all that in this new home and felt overwhelmingly blessed to have this opportunity.
When we first moved in, I was daily in awe. I couldn't believe this new house was ours. In our 14 years of marriage, we'd never had a NEW home. Everything was so clean and nice, and well, NEW. I felt overwhelmingly blessed to have this wonderful place to call home. I admit I spent days feeling guilt as well...guilty for having a new home when there are people out there who don't even have a home. This only increased my gratitude as I spent weeks setting up our house, attempting to once again make it feel like our HOME. I told Ryan that first week that as I unloaded all of our things into the cupboards in the kitchen I couldn't help but think of a book my Mom had read to me as a young child. I always remembered it because of the fun pictures and the message. It is about 2 birds, a husband and wife, who live in a little bird house. The husband loves the house and everyday sings "I love my house, I love my nest, in all the world my nest is best!" The story continues on to show how the wife bird gets fed up with the old birdhouse and sends the husband out to find a new one. Finally after searching and being unable to find something better, they decide to stay in their old house and the wife changes her attitude. As I was setting up our kitchen I told him I kept hearing the song in my head "I love my house, I love my nest....in all the world my nest is best!"
As months went on, and we began to meet people in the neighborhood we had opportunities to go into their homes. Many of them had built their homes and their houses were beautiful. We began making friends and getting to know some wonderful people and we were even happier. We loved all of our new friends and neighbors. However, slowly something began to happen to me....a deadly poison began to seep into my mind....the poison known as envy. I began to notice all the things that other people's houses had that ours did not. I began comparing. As I saw other houses in the neighborhood and what they had that we didn't, I am ashamed to admit that I began to feel that my own house was inadequate. How could it be that this house that was once PERFECT to us, our BEST nest, was suddenly inadequate???
Over the next few months I did some soul searching, and here's what I came up with. We are only as happy as we make up our minds to be. It is human nature to always want more...bigger and better. We are constantly bombarded with the next BEST thing....bigger, better, best. But when are we ever SATISFIED? When are we ever content? Sometimes society would have us believe that if we don't have the best of what's out there, something is wrong with us. Well what about contentment....and gratitude? What about being grateful for having anything at all?? Isn't it more important to have gratitude than it is to be obsessed with trying to achieve the next best thing? The problem we can run into is that in our pursuit for "perfection" and "more", we can miss out on what is right in front of us...what is there in the moment...what we have already been blessed with. When we turn off those thoughts that allow the poison of envy to take over our minds, we can find real happiness. Being content allows us to live....allows us to rejoice and recognize how much we really do have, no matter how big or small it may be compared to everything else. What is really important is how we receive blessings and then how we choose to give back...not how much we can accumulate.
I am now back to appreciating my nest. In honor of my new found perspective, I have added a little reminder to our home.
These birdhouses on top of the cabinets in my kitchen help remind me to appreciate my blessings and find joy in what I have. They remind me to look back on how I felt that first week in this kitchen, unloading boxes and singing about my best nest. They remind me that there will always be something better than what I have...but there is also always something worse. They remind me to focus on what I DO have, and not what I DON'T. Like the mother bird in the story I can now continue to sing "I love my house, I love my nest, in all the world, my nest is best." And hopefully, regardless of WHERE I am, and what my circumstances may be, I will be able to say that with a grateful heart!
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