House vs. Home

Well, we have now been official Chicagoans for nearly six whole weeks! Really, it feels as though we have been here much longer than that, but I guess that is impossible since in reality we are still newlyweds who have just passed their 7 week wedding anniversary! That just goes to show how quickly we adjust to new surroundings, and believe me - I'm still adjusting! It is a slow and steady process.

The first few weeks of living in Chicago were especially challenging for me, mostly because I was faced with the fact that this was NOT home yet. I remember walking into our apartment with expectations of warmth and coziness and belonging, but instead being greeted with emptiness as my wide eyes scanned our cold, bare, furniture-less studio. This wasn't warm. This wasn't cozy. I didn't belong here. This wasn't home.

 In hind sight, I am beginning to understand now that there is a big difference between a "house" and a "home." While David and I walked into to our first "house" that first day in Chicago, it was far from becoming a "home." Creating a home takes TIME.

Today, a whopping five and a half weeks later, our "house" has slowly by slowly earned the title of "home." There is something so rewarding about looking around the room and seeing all of our things around us and in their proper places. And while we know and believe that our true treasure lies in heaven, we are more than thankful for the worldly simple pleasures that God is blessing us with here on this Earth.

When I think back to how it felt walking into our empty apartment - how cold and lonely it was - it really makes me so grateful for how God has provided for us so significantly even this far in our marriage. I am humbled by the fact that my God is so big yet He takes the time to look after my individual, personal, unimportant cares, worries, and needs. And I love the way that He manifests Himself to me - like He did through this story by bringing me far away from the home of my youth - my comfort zone - to an empty, tiny apartment… and then, before my very eyes, He transformed and shaped this place from the bottom up into a real, beautiful, cozy "home." If in the short span of 5 weeks God has already proven that He will not leave me or forsake me wherever I go, then what will He show me over the course of an entire lifetime? There is nothing I have to worry about. My God will always take care of me, and that is a beautiful thing.

" Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

Matthew 6:26

"Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."

Psalm 139:7-10

The driveway into our condo building

Munchin' on some grapes in the kitchen

Such a hard worker. So proud of my man.