Cold Feet

A few months before I was set to marry Paul, I had some pretty cold feet. My mind swarmed with questions, it all felt so permanent and as much as I loved him, forever is well infinite. That was almost 14 years ago, we did in fact get married. It is not always amazing because we are humans, but it is often amazing. Big life changes always put me a little on edge, some more than others. I can remember the end of pregnancy and feeling like I would never be ready to take care of a baby, even though I had been taking care of other people's babies for years.

In the past seven years we have made three major moves. While moving always makes me a little anxious those big moves didn't give me cold feet. In January, I was down right excited to be moving back to our home state. We are getting ready to move again just a few months later, we currently live in temporary housing. We opted for a short term lease when we  moved with intentions of buying our first home eventually.

We started the long process of buying our first home a few weeks ago. There is a part of me that is very excited about getting to paint the walls colors of my own choosing. I get excited about having our own yard. This process is not for the faint of heart, it is a roller coaster. I have settled on we aren't even saying we bought a house until closing day when we have the keys in our hands. It makes a lot of sense financially to buy a house, we can build equity, and do all those responsible sounding things. I don't mind being responsible, I have been fairly responsible most of my life. There were probably points in my life where I have been too responsible.

The process is in a lull right now, we are doing a ton of waiting, waiting has given me time to think about what it all means. One of the challenges has been to find a home that is big enough but not too big. I have been adamant that if we buy a home bigger than we need that we must find ways to use that home to serve others. I have also been pretty firm on not buying at the top of our budget because I want to live my life, I do not want to be controlled by home ownership.

Last year at this time we were departing on an epic summer road trip! I told Paul last week, I kind of wish we were taking another epic trip and not wrapped up in this process. We have joked about calling off the whole thing and buying an RV to live in. The thing is my entire life, if the toilet broke and we couldn't fix it ourselves we just called someone and it got fixed, the cost included in our rent. We never had to worry about the roof, the furnace, the plumbing.

Thinking about it all gives me cold feet, ice cold bare foot in the South Dakota winter, cold feet. In about three minutes Elsa is going to be singing up in here. I want to run in the other direction. This is so long term! Can we really afford this? Are we ready? Will we still be able to take awesome road trips? What if my whole life becomes about taking care of a house?

Then I overheard a conversation about how "young" people want so much more today. I chuckled to myself because there I was dreading home ownership and worried about what was too big. Also most of us can't afford what the generation before us did. We are lucky if we can buy a car let alone a condo. Its funny because it seems like people a generation or two older than myself who know we are doing this are more excited than I am. There was a time in my life when I longed to be able to do this home buying thing and now I stand on the threshold lacking enthusiasm.

Lest I sound like I am complaining about an opportunity not everyone gets, allow me expand a bit. I am super anxious about all this and I know that will pass. Perhaps 14 years from now and half way through our mortgage payments I will be full of joy or at least satisfaction. If I set all that aside, I wonder about the theology of home ownership. How will this allow me to serve others more fully? How will it hold me back? Jesus wandered and never had a permanent home. Can I reconcile that if I say I follow Jesus? (Of course he wouldn't have even had my current apartment.)  What do I do with all that stuff Scripture has to say about sharing with others. How can I celebrate my own ability to do this big thing, own a home, while others struggle to feed their own children? It wasn't all that long ago I struggled to feed my own child, with a SNAP card. It wasn't that long ago I lost the respect of people I cared about because my family benefited from the Affordable Care Act while I was a student. It was just a few years ago I didn't know how we were going to pay the rent each month, every month it felt as if it might be the month we had to separate our family in two states just to survive.

At this point at least a few of you are thinking, you pulled yourself out of that place. That is not true, it was through the ordinary miracle of community that we made it through. It had very little to do with us as individuals and nothing at all to do with the proverbial "boot straps" we hear about pulling on. For months we survived because a variety of people with whom we shared community volunteered to help us. People offered to open their homes to us. People paid our rent while I job searched for my first call. They cared for our child and pets when I went on interviews all over the country. It's not to say we didn't do anything to get to this place, it's that we didn't get here all on our own. We had help, a ton of help, help that many people do not have access to.

Now that I am in a more stable place, how do I use these gifts to help others? I fear perhaps that when I hold that key in my hand, when the walls are painted the colors of my own choosing, I might forget where it was I came from. That I will fail to see with fresh eyes those who need help finding their boots. It can be almost paralyzing at times if not overwhelming.

Today I am grateful for all the opportunity, the community, the life, the highs and lows that I get to experience. May God use me to serve the beloved community as they have served me.