The house dream

So, confession... I have always wanted a house. I think it's a common longing for most women - right up there with getting a husband and kids. Maybe not, and I'm just obsessed... or maybe it's an outgrowth of our wandering lifestyle...

Anyways, I have always wanted to have a house that is "mine" - that I can paint and decorate as I wish and plant flowers in the front yard just as I want to... we have played "house" at every place we have lived in since we've been married... this is our 6th house in almost 8 years of marriage - and we have painted each one and planted things in each one - and left every one after a year or so...

I think I also want a house because I hate our current house. It is wooden and horribly hard to keep clean and it's split level and I have fallen down the stairs at least 5 times... not used to stairs. :) Also, the boards are rough and I get splinters in my feet from walking around bare foot - and who doesn't want to be barefoot in their own house?!?

I pictured us buying a simple little house and renting it out, having a place to call "home" while we're on furlough and in 20-30 years when we're done here, having a place to retire in...

So, Brant and I started looking for a house a month or so ago... we shouldn't have - we should have done what all the "buying your first house" websites tell you to do - get the financial paperwork done first. We found a beautiful house and I fell in love - white stone (my dream) and an office for Brant (his dream) on a big lot in the country with a neighborhood pool and playground for the boys. We started jumping through the hoops of loan paperwork and fell flat pretty fast - right when we figured out we couldn't get a loan as "homeowners" and also be "overseas citizens" at the same time. ("Homeowners" get tax breaks and lower interest rates... so do "overseas citizens" -but you can't be both...)

I'm reading Proverbs this month and the other day read a very fitting verse... "Be wise enough to know when to quit" (Prov 23:4) We are quitting the house buying dream for the time being. Brant reminds me there will be other houses... I console myself with the fact that the white stone house didn't have a fire place - another dream of mine. But it comes down to an issue of trust, I think. I do trust that the Lord will provide for us - that we will never be homeless when we are old and gray because we didn't have the money to buy a house when we were young. But I also need to trust that His plans for my life are perfect - and if that involves never owning a home, then I need to be okay with that. I need to trust that He will provide contentment and peace with or without a house I can call "mine." When we were in the States, I was talking to a good friend who just finished building their first home and were now faced with the possibility of having to sell it. I expressed sadness at the thought of them having to leave their house of many years worth of planning and dreaming... and she replied "It's just a house... and it belongs to the Lord."