I’ve been pondering a lot whilst unpacking boxes over what to say about this move, this home. A brief caption could never convey the full weight of the story or the emotions, and I’ve been reluctant to post a quick #soblessed and leave it at that.

Of course we absolutely are. So very grateful, and so very blessed. This home is beyond what we could have dreamed of and hoped for. But I’m familiar with the feelings that type of post can conjure up on social media, when that doesn’t feel like that’s your story. And for so long, it didn’t feel like mine, either. So here is the back story to how we got here, and I tell it because if you’re in the middle of your story, and can’t see a way through, maybe my messy tale can encourage you. There’s more going on than you might think.

We bought our first home the year before we married, in the days when mortgages were being given away with cornflakes. Ok maybe not, but it was remarkably easy for two naive twenty somethings to get a 105% mortgage. We had good jobs, but I brought university debt, and my poor relationship with money, and that easy mortgage was a catalyst for tricky years ahead.

Fast forward four years and we’d filled our little home with two small curly haired girls, but no means to upsize. An opportunity to rent a bigger home at a reasonable price came, and so we made the decision to let ours out and rent instead.

And then came the recession, and our mortgage company increased their rates and rental costs escalated rapidly, and my spending continued as we juggled three small children and special needs and a whole heap of shame. We hit the point where we realised we would never clear more than the interest of the borrowing we’d acquired, and to have the chance to open our home through fostering as we longed to do, we needed to take action and responsibility. So we approached CAP and began a debt management plan.

And we plodded our way through paying it back over the next six years. Through four enforced house moves, through months without tenants, through the juggle of emotions that came with fostering and welcoming and saying goodbyes.

And I struggled and wrestled with it all. I love home. I love family. I love beauty in design and I love creating a space where we can love one another and share it with others.

But those feelings got distorted and became too important, and feelings of ugly jealousy and envy of those who had what I didn’t, and of ungrateful disillusionment over all I did have were all too often the primary emotions in my heart.

Those years passed by, with learning through the hard and the good, and we welcomed our three youngest to our family. Our debt was paid off the month we went to adoption approval panel, and our finances changed significantly.

But the dream of owning a home of our own still seemed too unlikely, too distant. Debt management plans affect credit ratings for years, and we didn’t know if we’d get a mortgage as we rapidly approached our forties. And I was reluctant to dream of a home we could call our own.

But timing is everything and God’s timing is beautiful and a few months into lockdown we were approached by someone keen to buy our little home. Wondering if now was the time to try, we nervously enquired over a mortgage – and were approved.

Still, the idea seemed ridiculous. We lived in one of the most sought after locations in our area, and to find a house that would fit eight of us at a price we could afford seemed beyond hope. We like the countryside, and looked further afield, but to move our children miles away from friends seemed to defeat the object of them being settled, and of being part of a community where we could share our home.

For various reasons, we’d never considered the city. We’ve lived by a river with views of fields and hills for most of our lives, and urban living was something we’d never considered. During that time there was a week where I had several conversations with friends who lived nearer the city, who were enthusiastic and genuinely grateful to be where they were. This sparked a wondering of whether we should be more open minded, and we began widening our search area, and considering how it might work with schools and friends and work and kids. I offhandedly said one day the name of a road that would work well for all those logistics.

Then the next day this house popped up on Rightmove. On the very street I’d named. In our price bracket. Too beautiful to dare to hope, but so perfect for our family it seemed crazy not to try.

That was in May this year. We viewed it, put our offer in, and waited. Friends prayed. We prayed. People kept telling me they’d seen it online and how lovely it was, but I couldn’t quite believe it would actually happen. Until finally, on October 11th, we were handed the keys to this house, our home.

I wanted to share our story because I feel almost embarrassed by this home. Like a bit of a fraud to be allowed to own it.

But I also wanted to share our story because this is what I’m realising – we are very blessed to be here, indeed.

But, the important thing I needed to see, was that we were no less blessed when we were given a month’s notice to move out of a rental house. When our tenants trashed our old home and we had to redo it all. When we didn’t know whether babies we loved would stay or go. When we watched other people’s stories with aching hearts and dreamed of where ours might go.

Blessing comes in so many ways. And the truth is, those years have taught us and grown us and shaped us, in ways that wouldn’t have happened if things had gone differently. Through our mistakes, through our hurt, and through so many unexpected moments of provision and joy, we’ve learned lessons that have changed us.

The truth is that if I move into this home and believe it will be all my dreams come true, it won’t be long before I’m looking elsewhere for happiness. Because we are living in the in between of a broken world that isn’t yet complete, and both my home and my heart reflect that. Within days of owning our home, plaster had fallen and fresh paint peeled and kids messed up the insta-worthy scenes, and the cracks in my dreams and my misdirected hopes showed up as quickly as those on the grey walls. And those moments are teaching me too. There is a God who delights to heap goodness on me, through reading nooks and storage walls and breakfast bars. But He also loves to heap goodness on me as I face the mess and the setbacks and the frustrations and the stress in our family, and as I see Him there with me in them. Walking alongside me and offering Himself in place of my broken dreams, His love to restore my fractured relationships.

My prayer through this year as we waited was that if this was to be our home, we would never forget Who made it possible, and we would open our door wide and offer shelter to those around us. Because whilst I am beyond grateful that this home is for our family, and we get to enjoy it, and our children can feel secure and have a greater sense of permanence, I don’t believe it’s ours alone. We, humanity, are part of a bigger family. A bigger world. If this city street is where we call home, may I never be so precious about the house itself that I sit behind a closed door and lose sight of the people around me. Because being home is about so much more than a building.

‘Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.’ (CS Lewis)