A House of Imperfections

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

-John Howard Payne

Our house is a small house with four walls and a front door. It sits in a building with many other houses and among a community with hundreds of other work-goers and family-makers. It is high off the ground, overlooking neighboring lights and a football field from my youth.

It holds the character of our souls, with walls that bring paint colors of warmth and pictures of our past. We play video games here. We wash dishes here. We eat here and play here and drink here. We pray here.

Everything inside me almost every day screams to keep it up to par. To ensure its put-togetherness-its perfection. My pillows, often misaligned on their classy home, kill me with their sagging bit. And each walk-by I do, I make myself pass over them because there is no energy left for realignment.

Tonight, before writing to you, I put Leaves to bed, took a shower, made my bed, did the dishes, packed my lunch, washed my pump, pumped, peeled my eggs for the morning, and refilled two water bins.

Tomorrow, when I wake up, all of it will be drained out of this house again as we live the day over.

Levi will quarrel with me to get his diaper changed and I will quarrel with the bottle warmer to heat his milk. He will use up all the bottles I washed and I will dirty the pump again. And the water bin for the Keurig will be empty by noon.

A house in disarray was my enemy before this. Even when a streak of dirt lay across the counter. But now I am overwhelmed by its glory.

It is clean and sometimes dirty.

Neat and sometimes messy.

Quiet and sometimes loud.

Fruitful and sometimes wasteful.

It is our own nook.

And when I come home at 6 o’clock to find three bottles in various places including under our sheets in bed, it reminds me of a husband who is home to feed Levi when he needs to be fed.

And for all these things and more, I am so grateful.