Jun. 17, 2009 - Random Summer Musing
Today is a gloriously warm, sunny day in June. So when Katie asked me to come along on her paper route with her, I decided to leave my studies and take an hour to walk with my two youngest girls. I pulled the wagon of papers while the girls ran back and forth up the walkways to deliver the papers. It was a good arrangement, good exercise, and a nice time with the two of them. The sun was warm, yet the day has not yet warmed up completely so the cool breeze kept us from overheating as we walked around the neighbourhood.
As we walked I noticed the various houses along the route. There are all kinds of homes in this neighbourhood from the very humble to the grand, from bungalows to two-stories, from modern siding to rustic wood and stone. Some of these are houses we looked at when we moved here. Sometimes I wonder if this one or that one would have been better than the one we bought. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s a nice neighbourhood and my home suits us well. But as I look at various houses my mind often turns toward the future. What kind of house will we live in next?
Perhaps this frame of mind comes from the transient nature of our life in the Canadian Air Force. Though we haven’t moved as often as many in this line of work, we live always with the knowledge that we will move again. And currently we are staring at the end of our current posting, expecting to be moved next year, or the year after at the latest.
Perhaps my contemplating is also due to the fact that I have never really been happy about our current posting. Though there are wonderful people in this town, and there are some advantages to living in a small community that I do not take lightly, I am not fond of the climate and sometimes get frustrated by the remoteness of our town, so the prospect of this posting being over is not altogether unpleasant for me.
So as I wandered the neighbourhood looking at houses, I wondered what my next house will be like. We have lived in 8 homes over the years so you can be sure that our list of requirements is lengthy and specific. Most important of all is the age-old realty chant, “Location, location, location.” We long to live in the country, and plan on our next move to stay in rented housing as long as necessary to finally find the acreage of our dreams. As we approach the possibility of retirement, we wonder if we’ll be able to stay in our next home permanently. What a treat it will be when we finally discover that we never have to move again! Not that we never will, necessarily…but we’ll never have to.
Meanwhile, I look at houses and note the beautiful stone-work on this one, the gorgeous front window on that one, the lovely deck and landscaping over here, a fabulous entry there. Tucking these ideas into my head for the future, I returned to my current home, one that has much to offer including the location. Though we’re not on an acreage yet, we enjoy many benefits in this house – we can walk to the beach, hear the surf on a windy day, smell the campfires at the nearby campground on long summer evenings, and the paper route is right outside our door! Life is good, even when it’s not perfect. We are blessed to be where we are, and though we may not know what it is, we are grateful that God has a purpose for placing us here for a time.
