Your Home: Your Heart
I love people who buy a million dollar home and then never take the time to decorate it. NOT. I especially become concerned when there are children in the home and it still looks like a very expensive house purchased by people who would rather be socialites with their peers than to make a home that is comfortable and beautiful for their children and as an example to them growing up. A beautiful home of a couple comes to mind at this very moment. Both seem to be lovely people yet the wife looks to me to have a sadness I could feel in my heart. Every Spring they have an outdoor event and frankly the outside of their home is delicious and absolutely impeccable. What others see on the outside is what seems to be important. The home is painted a beautiful pale yellow and the trim is white. The door is a beautiful shade of blue and in back of the home is a little casa with beautiful flowers surrounding it and every other section of the outside of the house. It is to say the least absolutely perfect. Yet when you walk in it is like you have gone to a home somewhere else in time. It is disorganized and there is nothing in the home that welcomes you. Thankfully they did produce a play area in the basement level that looks fun for the children, ranging from teen to about eight years old, I think there were four of them. I was shocked when I led the lady of the house into a conversation of who beautiful her home was when suddenly she shared that some decorator had ordered things they never received but paid for including her services. It sounded like a bad situation that was still living inside of her and her house. Perhaps this had something to do with the incomplete nature of her home? Whatever the reason it is something I have seen over and over again. A house that is not a home.
A house that is a home has heart. Someone took the time to put their heart into it. Someone decides to love the house and make it a comfortable home where the love is obvious and the gratitude is likely matched. For some their home is their sacred space and I say it is as it should be. For others it is a place where they quote: "crash" or simply put they sleep there and it keeps the rain from "falling on their head" (The Color Purple). I for one find that my home is my most safe and wonderful space in my life. I like to come home and I love getting up in the morning. I think I got this from my mom and my grandmother who were both impeccable about the cleanliness of their home and kept things in their place, where we could all find it. There is much to be said about loving your house into becoming that sacred space where you live fully and laughter fills the inside of it. Where there are parties and the children chase one another and hit each other with pillows that are clean and soft with child like abandon. Although I don't judge people who don't love their home as much as I there is a part of me that wonders why they are not connected to their space. Could it be that they are not happy? Is it really what they say: "material things don't matter to me". Or is it just that they are so lazy that they don't want to do the necessary work? Whatever their reasoning I sense that there is such a sad disconnect for many of them and that if they were to consider their environment important they would at the very least have a comfortable home that invites others to participate and love as much as they should.
There are many people who are not willing to even talk about why their home is a wreck much like one person I met many years ago. The plaster from the ceiling atop the furniture, the cushions on the sofa flying out, the sofa filthy as well as the only bathroom filled with tiles that had come off the walls around it and the kitchen cabinets missing door and hanging from one hinge. When I asked about it his response was that he had not lived in it for a few months and that he did not want to ever talk about it. I knew in that moment that his house was a result of some depression or something that happened that was sadder than he could even bear talking about. His best friend agreed with me as did his siblings one of which said: "oh you have never been here before, welcome to Ken's (not his real name) world. Nothing could have shocked me more than that day when I did see how this person lived and my foot went through the stair coming down to his unit. It was more than I could ever handle living in. Yet in the end what makes someone live like this is really more about extremes: a false sense of entitlement, a lack of application for what they have, denial or pain. There could be nothing sadder to me.
Making your house a home is not simple but start with some very easy things like new sheets for your bed and two new pillows. Some people make their beds with just the sheets and it looks lovely. Pick a color for the wall at the head of your bed. If you don't have a headboard no worries, just cover the base with a bedskirt. Get a small table and lamp for the side of the bed and consider one decorative pillow. Make your bedroom a sacred sleeping space. Practise keeping it up and tending to it. See how it feels when you are in side of it reading a book or watching a good movie. Start small and feel what it's like to live honoring yourself and God. Move into your life beloved and make your house a magical space to live inside of. You will see what a difference it will make.
A house that is a home has heart. Someone took the time to put their heart into it. Someone decides to love the house and make it a comfortable home where the love is obvious and the gratitude is likely matched. For some their home is their sacred space and I say it is as it should be. For others it is a place where they quote: "crash" or simply put they sleep there and it keeps the rain from "falling on their head" (The Color Purple). I for one find that my home is my most safe and wonderful space in my life. I like to come home and I love getting up in the morning. I think I got this from my mom and my grandmother who were both impeccable about the cleanliness of their home and kept things in their place, where we could all find it. There is much to be said about loving your house into becoming that sacred space where you live fully and laughter fills the inside of it. Where there are parties and the children chase one another and hit each other with pillows that are clean and soft with child like abandon. Although I don't judge people who don't love their home as much as I there is a part of me that wonders why they are not connected to their space. Could it be that they are not happy? Is it really what they say: "material things don't matter to me". Or is it just that they are so lazy that they don't want to do the necessary work? Whatever their reasoning I sense that there is such a sad disconnect for many of them and that if they were to consider their environment important they would at the very least have a comfortable home that invites others to participate and love as much as they should.
There are many people who are not willing to even talk about why their home is a wreck much like one person I met many years ago. The plaster from the ceiling atop the furniture, the cushions on the sofa flying out, the sofa filthy as well as the only bathroom filled with tiles that had come off the walls around it and the kitchen cabinets missing door and hanging from one hinge. When I asked about it his response was that he had not lived in it for a few months and that he did not want to ever talk about it. I knew in that moment that his house was a result of some depression or something that happened that was sadder than he could even bear talking about. His best friend agreed with me as did his siblings one of which said: "oh you have never been here before, welcome to Ken's (not his real name) world. Nothing could have shocked me more than that day when I did see how this person lived and my foot went through the stair coming down to his unit. It was more than I could ever handle living in. Yet in the end what makes someone live like this is really more about extremes: a false sense of entitlement, a lack of application for what they have, denial or pain. There could be nothing sadder to me.
Making your house a home is not simple but start with some very easy things like new sheets for your bed and two new pillows. Some people make their beds with just the sheets and it looks lovely. Pick a color for the wall at the head of your bed. If you don't have a headboard no worries, just cover the base with a bedskirt. Get a small table and lamp for the side of the bed and consider one decorative pillow. Make your bedroom a sacred sleeping space. Practise keeping it up and tending to it. See how it feels when you are in side of it reading a book or watching a good movie. Start small and feel what it's like to live honoring yourself and God. Move into your life beloved and make your house a magical space to live inside of. You will see what a difference it will make.
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