Devotion - February 5, 2020
07/02/20 18:36
Greetings!
We bought our retirement home which is a little over an hour from where we live. It is an old farmhouse that requires work to get it ‘up to snuff’ (wonder where that phrase came from?). Anyway, it is livable the way it is but in order to make it look like a place someone would want to really live full time it requires some work. There is some land and a pond with this retirement home as well and there is lots we want to do with that.
Of course the original idea was to buy the place and then when I eventually retire we would go and begin the work while we were living there. But we are just like little kids with a quarter outside the dime candy store, we were anxious to get busy and begin the work!
So our plan became for us to leave when I got off work Thursdays, drive over, work Fridays, which is my day off, and come back Saturdays. The plan is working well, although my already retired husband makes some extra trips - well because he can!
Thursday afternoons we pack the car as full as we can - we are moving a car load at a time with an occasional piece of furniture in our cart - and the trip commences.
What has become an interesting aspect of this weekly journey is we begin to get a good grasp on everything along the road on the way! Especially when something is changed or missing.
When we started the traipsing back and forth we noticed an ice cream truck for sale sitting on the side of a hill. You know the kind which has the cute little song playing and the types of ice cream delights painted all over it. (Which I thought would be a great purchase because I think it would be a whole lot of fun to drive around neighborhoods and give ice cream to little kids). Every time we went by there was a 5-minute conversation about this ice cream truck and why I wanted it and why my husband didn't - until one trip when it was gone. I was quite sad and now we have a 5-minute conversation every time we drive by where the ice cream truck was parked considering what happened to this ice cream truck - did someone buy it so they could deliver ice cream to neighborhood children or did they just give up trying to sell it or…….
We also noticed along the road a stand which had a porch swing hanging from it with a big ‘For Sale’ sign. Each time we drove by I said, “I would really like a porch swing’ even though currently we really don’t have any where for it and my husband reminds me every single time I got a porch swing where we were living we ended up having to move……
But what was really funny about this porch swing was I didn’t realize until many trips this guy was selling porch swings and this was just the current one he was selling…. cause I kept wondering why no one was buying the one hanging out there and I thought I maybe was going a little crazy since the porch swing looked a bit different each time we drove by…
Then there is the guy who either is an RV salesman, and RV renter or and RV repairer or just likes multiple RV’s sitting in front of his house. Not the little ones, but those ones where you could live if you had a mind to. The kind we kept threatening our kids we were going to buy and just spend a month in front of each of their houses when we retired….. Sometimes there are 3 RV’s, sometimes there are 1 or 2, sometimes there are none….. Hmmmm…..
We also drive by a house we thought about buying which is almost the same situation we have now - acreage, a pond, porch. But it is right on the main road and there is no fence so this house got axed pretty quickly from our consideration list…. but it is a good source of conversation as we drive by looking at what the people who bought are doing with it!
I’m sure you do not want to hear every moment of our itinerary and all of the things we observe during our frequent trips back and forth, cause there is much more and I can always keep typing and describing and ruminating over the observations….
Our trips and our observations remind us of the importance of paying attention to the journey of faith we are all on as we live each day as God’s people. It is important that we observe and discuss and notice and even discuss where we see God and what we see God doing and the changes we see in ourselves and even in others as we and they too grow ‘more Christlike’ in the journey of faith.
Because isn’t that why God sets us on our journeys? Aren’t we on these journeys so we can grow closer to God and to better align our lives with the great example we have been given in Jesus Christ?
Sometimes we see it in the changes in ourselves and sometimes we see it in the changes of those around us - and both observations help us better see the greatness and love and power and grace of our God!
Amen!
We bought our retirement home which is a little over an hour from where we live. It is an old farmhouse that requires work to get it ‘up to snuff’ (wonder where that phrase came from?). Anyway, it is livable the way it is but in order to make it look like a place someone would want to really live full time it requires some work. There is some land and a pond with this retirement home as well and there is lots we want to do with that.
Of course the original idea was to buy the place and then when I eventually retire we would go and begin the work while we were living there. But we are just like little kids with a quarter outside the dime candy store, we were anxious to get busy and begin the work!
So our plan became for us to leave when I got off work Thursdays, drive over, work Fridays, which is my day off, and come back Saturdays. The plan is working well, although my already retired husband makes some extra trips - well because he can!
Thursday afternoons we pack the car as full as we can - we are moving a car load at a time with an occasional piece of furniture in our cart - and the trip commences.
What has become an interesting aspect of this weekly journey is we begin to get a good grasp on everything along the road on the way! Especially when something is changed or missing.
When we started the traipsing back and forth we noticed an ice cream truck for sale sitting on the side of a hill. You know the kind which has the cute little song playing and the types of ice cream delights painted all over it. (Which I thought would be a great purchase because I think it would be a whole lot of fun to drive around neighborhoods and give ice cream to little kids). Every time we went by there was a 5-minute conversation about this ice cream truck and why I wanted it and why my husband didn't - until one trip when it was gone. I was quite sad and now we have a 5-minute conversation every time we drive by where the ice cream truck was parked considering what happened to this ice cream truck - did someone buy it so they could deliver ice cream to neighborhood children or did they just give up trying to sell it or…….
We also noticed along the road a stand which had a porch swing hanging from it with a big ‘For Sale’ sign. Each time we drove by I said, “I would really like a porch swing’ even though currently we really don’t have any where for it and my husband reminds me every single time I got a porch swing where we were living we ended up having to move……
But what was really funny about this porch swing was I didn’t realize until many trips this guy was selling porch swings and this was just the current one he was selling…. cause I kept wondering why no one was buying the one hanging out there and I thought I maybe was going a little crazy since the porch swing looked a bit different each time we drove by…
Then there is the guy who either is an RV salesman, and RV renter or and RV repairer or just likes multiple RV’s sitting in front of his house. Not the little ones, but those ones where you could live if you had a mind to. The kind we kept threatening our kids we were going to buy and just spend a month in front of each of their houses when we retired….. Sometimes there are 3 RV’s, sometimes there are 1 or 2, sometimes there are none….. Hmmmm…..
We also drive by a house we thought about buying which is almost the same situation we have now - acreage, a pond, porch. But it is right on the main road and there is no fence so this house got axed pretty quickly from our consideration list…. but it is a good source of conversation as we drive by looking at what the people who bought are doing with it!
I’m sure you do not want to hear every moment of our itinerary and all of the things we observe during our frequent trips back and forth, cause there is much more and I can always keep typing and describing and ruminating over the observations….
Our trips and our observations remind us of the importance of paying attention to the journey of faith we are all on as we live each day as God’s people. It is important that we observe and discuss and notice and even discuss where we see God and what we see God doing and the changes we see in ourselves and even in others as we and they too grow ‘more Christlike’ in the journey of faith.
Because isn’t that why God sets us on our journeys? Aren’t we on these journeys so we can grow closer to God and to better align our lives with the great example we have been given in Jesus Christ?
Sometimes we see it in the changes in ourselves and sometimes we see it in the changes of those around us - and both observations help us better see the greatness and love and power and grace of our God!
Amen!