House hunting?? Here are some upgrades to consider...

I’ve been looking at real estate. Eyeballing all sorts of houses boasting miles of rich wood flooring, grandiose fireplaces, and kitchens equipped for kings, but I’m reminded that a house is just sticks and bricks if it’s devoid of life and love.

It’s not the upgrades or the neighborhood or the size of a dwelling that makes a home, it’s the memories created, the love experienced, the food tasted, the kindnesses expressed, the life lessons learned.

How many grew up living in ‘mansions’ but reflect on a sour note at the emptiness of that abode?

The loneliness.

The barrenness.

The desperation.

The alcohol-induced feuds and chaotic atmosphere.

I recently lived in a cozy, (cramped), loud, bustling, tiny two-bedroom urban apartment where I could look down from my perch and watch assorted unsavory activity taking place on any given day on the city streets below. Some of my happiest memories occurred there in that nest, high above the cold hard world outside while I quietly nurtured my growing family in my temporary home.

What are you building?

How are you building?

Mom, dad, YOU are the home.

You are the PULSE of the home, the fire in the fireplace, the love light burning bright.

How are you living life?

Is your communication just sticky notes and occasional food in the fridge - a pizza box, a frozen dinner with a how-to stuck on top?

Do the hallways echo with gracious words and helpful intentions and tender voice tones?

Or is it f-bombs and threats and screams?

Or perhaps passive anger expressed through cold silence as ships pass in the night down the hall...

Does the aroma of good food linger through the rooms and out the front door?

Are souls so happy to be home they bring friends to share in it all?

Oh the power we have in our hands with our possessions and our schedules.

We rule our worlds.

We can’t blame someone else.

Does grace abound in your abode?

Do hearts sing and are steps made lighter upon exiting your house?

Are prayers offered up continually?

What is a home?!

We all drive by jaw-dropping ‘perceptions’ regularly.

Trimmed hedges, landscaped gardens, BMWs in the drive, lawn chairs on perfect patios.

But where is humanity?

Who sits in the chairs?

Who eats in the dining room?

So much wasted space and tools of love sit empty, gathering dust…day-by-day until they turn into year-by-year.

Why is Junior so distant?

Where is the Little Princess?

What do they value?

Who do they flock to?

What is their anchor?

Where did the years go?

I just heard a lady whine about wishing she could stay home with her miracle baby and be a mom.So…why not work another miracle and sell the great house, rent a good house, sell the extra car, NOT pay for daycare and afford to stay home?

Her daughter is two..tomorrow she will be 22.

Instead people will work their a$$ess off to keep a great empty shell of a place filled with anxiety and strife and take-out food.The sounds of silence.

I’d rather live in a love-filled camper and have mom home than in a hoity-toity gated fortress where mama is absent trying to produce more income to pay the debts incurred by discontent and illusions in order to prop up a perception.

That gate ain’t keeping anything out of that house if Mama’s away all day….

Thank you for reading! If you'd like to read more, grab my free E-book 15 Minutes to Raising an Extraordinary Human HERE