28 January 2015

compulsive much?

In the category of things that make me gently, forgivingly rueful about myself, is my recently noted addiction to Pinterest, directly related to our moving.  There is very little I can control about our move.  The only tangible thing I could control in the entire process is how clean our house was when it was time for showings... and I really don't get "into" cleaning anyway.  Now our house is sold, and that part is over.  Our closing date is penciled in on my calendar. Cue the "William Tell Overture" music as we now have more pressure to pick a house in our new town, and buy it.  And that isn't as easy as I thought it would be.


And this is, understandably, stressful.  Each time a house listed online seems like a possibility, there is a process I can't speed up.  We have to wait- wait to see the inside, wait to get an expert friend look at the roof, wait to get an estimate about renovation costs, wait to decide if the floor plan will work for us.  I have two ways of coping- first, staring at houses for ages on zillow.com in an ever widening circle around our future town, and secondly, trolling Pinterest for ideas on how to fix up and decorate a given housing candidate.  We looked at a house with an 4 season porch with dark wood paneling.  So I pinned ideas for painting paneling.
from Southern Living House Plans
We were hopeful about a Tudor revival English cottage style house, with garishly red painted trim.  So I pinned modern paint color palettes for Tudors.
from Country Living
When the inside of that house turned out to be a money pit fit for a sitcom episode, we heard about a possible ranch coming on the market.  Within a couple hours I was pinning pics of ways to improve the curb appeal of plain jane 1960s ranches.
found on Houzz.com
While these hours were fun, and gave the illusion of being (mildly) helpful, they were in fact a lovely distraction and a waste of time.

I am very conscious of the ways this move is stretching my faith.  I have had to ask myself some hard questions.  Do I really trust God with this move?  Can I let go of trying to control the details and timing of this?  Am I really listening, I mean, REALLY paying attention to what he is calling our family to invest in?  Can I wait for a while, not knowing everything in advance and not scrambling with regards to our next home?

Here are some things I know.  We will move.  We may buy a house in time, we may need to rent.  It could go smoothly; it could be a stressful transition.  But our problems are small in the grand scheme of things; any homelessness we face will be temporary.  We have loving friends on both ends of our move.  We have been supported and cheered on.  And I also know deep, deep down, in that almost wordless place inside, that we don't have money for Pinterest ideas anyways.  Praise God that he is so gentle and forgiving of my (sometimes) silly worries and preoccupations.  He keeps taking them out of my hands, so that they are free and open to receive the better plans He's had all along.  It may cause me stress to fill out mortgage paperwork and have nothing to put in the "forwarding address" blank (especially as a rule-following firstborn- I can't leave a question blank!) but whatever our address, we will be the same goofy people living out the same kingdom life Jesus called us to before I knew how to spell mortgage. And so maybe tomorrow I can spend more time in prayer, service, and friendship, than I spend on zillow.com and Pinterest.  A-men.