Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Home (01/09/06)
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TITLE: Discontentment House | Previous Challenge Entry
By Benjamin Stephens
01/11/06 -
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She shared the home with her parents and siblings. There were too many of them in the ‘bread box’ and all she could think about was the day she could finally go ‘home’.
She left her family earlier than most, living in nicer accommodations at the homes of older cousins and friends. This too, was not what she wanted. Her heart was somewhere beyond the gift of room and board.
Then came the day when she married, but college found the new couple in on-campus married housing. She still dreamed of that home that would solve all of her anguish at her unfounded belief that others only saw her as ‘trailer trash’.
An older sister moved to a more glamorous state away from the manufactured housing of youth. The new couple followed and lived in her home for a year or two. This only amplified the yearning for a home. Her heart had a place in mind.
She began to subtly berate her husband. If he was a real provider then he would find a better job so she could go to that place where her heart knew home to be.
A new child made the desire for a home seem more important to the couple so they made their first home purchase and she loved every nook, she delighted in every sponge painted surface - it didn’t last.
Soon it seemed the walls were closing in. Her laments were long and her disappointment readily apparent. Her demands grew; the warm house with so much hope was just not home. Her heart told her so.
Her husband tried, but he was just not fast enough. She belittled him and accused him of not caring about the need for a place to call home.
To please his wife, the man made money his primary objective. If he could only get more money his wife might love him. He spent long hours at work and welcomed the opportunity to make travel a part of his job.
Soon the husband’s financial portfolio was strong enough to move his bride and daughter to a home in an exclusive neighborhood. They reveled in five bedrooms, four bathrooms, three levels, two brand new cars and one beautiful home.
The wife loved the home - for a time. But there were flaws; the carpet was the wrong color, the light fixtures were not the style she preferred, door hinges needed to be replaced because they weren’t made from the right brushed metal and the rooms weren’t configured quite right.
Her husband spends most of his time flying from one place to the next while she and her daughter live in an empty house. This too, is not the home that she had lodged in her heart. She still lives in the land of ‘If only’.
She traded a husband who is never around for a house she will not call home. She’d like for there to be something more to her life, but she can’t escape ‘Discontentment House’.
On dark nights when the house is far too quiet, but she’s too numb to care, she remembers when she used to cry.
“I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little” (Philippians 4:11-12 - NLT).
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Thanks once again for your insights. God Bless.
Well done.