As I organized I looked and remembered so many good, good times. Watching my children grow up in print right before my eyes. It was a joyous walk down memory lane. I love pictures! I love documenting life, both in print and in words. For as long as I can remember I have had a camera in my hand, I was a photographer for the newspaper and yearbook at school and I always wanted to be a professional photographer, yet I never took a class.
Looking back I discovered pictures I had taken of each of our rooms in our first home right before we sold it. I am so glad I did. So as your virtual travel agent let me take you for a peek around our first home…
This was our front room. It makes me think about all the laughter we shared in this room, the many trips inside and outside the patio door to play. I remember the warm fires during the cold winters, the evening devotion times. The front room is where you would find us if we weren’t eating or sleeping.
This is another view of our front room. We transformed an oddly placed closet in our front room into a little computer room and what you can’t see behind the little curtain is not Oz but shelves that stored all our VHS and DVDs. I look at the sofa table and remember making it out an artillery box and purchasing a glass top. I catch a small view of the kitchen with my cute little Indian lady that holds all our Wal Mart sacks and our wooden trash can that Darryl and Brandon hated because it filled up twice a day, but I loved because it blended in, they eventually won.
Here is part of our kitchen and our dinning room. This part of our house reminds me of family dinners and birthday parties. It reminds me baby bath times, many first meals I learned to cook and my love for retro furniture. I find it odd that the refrigerator door was so empty of art, but I suppose it was because these photos were used for the realtor’s website.
This is Darya’s bedroom. I think about all the fun Darya had in her room with all her stuffed animals and her best friend Senor. I look at her bed and see her jumping and bouncing up and down to the songs of Barney. I remember painting the room with the help of Gaye and Katy.
The other half of her room, the top of the room said, “Grow old along with me, honor your parents and it will be”…a Biblical promise paraphrased. It reminds me of her favorite stuffed animals. All her books she loved to read. The parties she hosted at her table. The window ledge reminds me of Jayden clearing off all its residents so he could dance.
Next I step into Jayden’s room. I remember his Noah’s Ark themed room. I remember the first conversations and laughs I had with Jayden in this room. I can envision him sitting on the floor playing with his toys and although he had his own room, he preferred hanging out with his big sister (things haven’t changed there). I remember that before Jayden came into our lives, this room was an office/scrapbook room.
This was Darryl and my bedroom. I think my most memorable moments here were mainly in the master bathroom (not pictured). First when Brandon came in to the master bathroom and told me something was going on and he wasn’t sure what, but he thought a plane had crashed some where because they interrupted his cartoons. As I turned on the TV in the bedroom I, too, discovered planes flying into the twin towers. It was September 11th. Second, it was in this home that I discovered I would be a biological mom, not once, but twice.
Upstairs was Megan and Brandon’s bedrooms. When I look at their rooms, I remember the design challenge it was in my mind. I remember that we had to purchase window units because the upstairs did not cool very well and it would get hot in the summer months. I remember when we purchased the house they were both so excited to have stairs and when we sold the house the fact that the house had stairs was one of the primary reasons we wanted to move. It was no fun climbing stairs with bad knees, nor was it fun falling down them, which we all had done. I remember looking out Brandon’s window, listening to the tornado sirens going off and watching a tornado hit on S.W. 134th and being upset that my camera was downstairs.
When I look at Megan’s room, I remember she wanted to paint the room blue and we did. Putting glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and because of the dark paint and the window being at the far end of the room – the room became very dark. So Darryl put in that fluorescent light – wasn’t the nicest light fixture, but it sure did brighten the room. I remember that Megan had the biggest closet which was an Australian (boomerang) closet. When Megan moved out, the room became my new craft, sewing and scrapbook room.
While we didn’t and still don’t have the fanciest of homes, we don’t have the elite or high end items…we have a home of peace. Joy. Love. Acceptance. We had and still do have mismatched furniture in all our rooms, but we have a home that we all can say is a comfortable home. I can’t think of one material thing in my house that if it is broken, stained or lost that I would become upset over. I know some people have “special rooms” in their houses that you can’t sit in because it is all for show. I know some people who yell at their children for “messing something up”. Not our house, we live in our house. We sprawl out on the couches. We eat popcorn on the couches while watching movies. Our house is clean, taken care of, but lived in.
If someone was to ask me about the style of my house today, I would have to say visually it is a mixture of coastal living to the mountains with some Americana, a little bit of vintage and Native American living. I love finding vintage furniture and decorating on a shoestring budget. Regardless of the style I try to bring in our spiritual beliefs by sprinkling words of truth throughout the house, so no matter what room we are in we can be reminded of His amazing grace. His endearing love. His never-ending faithfulness. His forever kindness.
I don’t covet what others have, nor do I focus on what we don’t have. I don’t have to, because we have been richly blessed with all we need. God has poured His blessings out on us and there is no need to compare or covet. Not just because one of the Ten Commandments is not to covet, but because like all sin it is a trap and never brings joy or contentment. Instead we become never satisfied, disillusioned and often depressed. There is definitely more to this life than Pottery Barn, Martha Stewart Living, and the others. There is definitely more to this life, but the “more” is not found in anything of this world; it is found in one Person…Jesus Christ.
Yes, there is “more” to this life. It isn’t in what we can obtain in material possessions, it isn’t found through reality television, it is not found in another person, nor is it having the most friends on Facebook, it is not found in food, but the “more” to this life, the abundant life is found in Christ Jesus. I am afraid that I often miss the “more” He has for me in this life because I allow the things of this world to gain my time instead of being fully saturated by the Word. By the Spirit of God. By His Word. His truth. My prayer this upcoming new year is that I will do as Paul and count it all loss (garbage, rubbish) for the sake of knowing Christ in a deeper more intimate way and then I will know that nothing compares to Him.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:7-8)
I am looking forward to starting my new Bible Study in January excited to see what God is going to do in my heart and life.
