Loco Diversion

Sometimes I go a little crazy!  No really I mean it.  I head off on a tangent.  Yes, those who know me have heard me ramble, but that is not the kind of tangent I am referring to.  It is sort of like a snowball effect of sorts.  My mind spirals from the table, to the curtain, to the area rug, to the wall color, from the kitchen, to the living room, to the bedroom, and on it goes.

We built and moved into our new home in Florida just less than a year ago.  We moved one thousand and sixteen miles to another tan rectangle as I call it.  Please do not take me the wrong way.  We have a beautiful home and have been beyond blessed to build our last two homes.  Yet, I have affinity to the depths of my soul for older homes that ooze character.  But this post is NOT about how we chose this home.  I am digressing, please allow me to redirect!  Tan rectangles take extra time and effort to develop the character than their elder counter parts sometimes do not, intertwined with the fact that the neighborhoods are made up of homes that mimic each other with minor variations.  I also can not remember a time since I was a wee, small girl that I did not enjoy decorating myself through fashion and yes as you can imagine that love for decorating later translated to decorating my home.

I love when a home reflects the owners character and style.  A casa that is warm and inviting, one might even say homey is what I long for within.  Imagine my little blonde son's chubby, sun kissed hands on an ever so big, fuzzy blanket and these words coming out of his mouth, "This is sooo cozy!"  That's how I want our home to feel and how I want to feel in our home.  Somehow in an effort to feel that, I sometimes, well really all too often, I go a little crazy.

I will allow myself to spend hours creating the perfect home through pins (aka Pinterest.com), waste a whole Saturday looking at furniture at stores who offer zero percent financing for X,Y,Z months, watch HGTV with a mouth that is beginning to resemble a dog with rabies, and fervently peruse this one, then that, and oh do not forget that website looking at the homes for sale trying every combo from new build, subdivision and no subdivision, new neighborhood, renovation, you name it to find just the right, house.  No, no, no, not house, HOME!

Please do not take me the wrong way.  None of these things are inherently bad in and of themselves.  Who knows, maybe not even in combination.  It is attitude I have when I am done of discontent, the time missed with family, the seeds of jealousy and envy that are planted or watered, and the idea that a home is made by what decorates it rather than who lives in it and the memories made there.

Crazy, just crazy how far I allow myself to meander down these roads and lines of thinking.  Somehow, someway I always come back to my senses.  Reason and the Holy Spirit's leading seep to the surface and sort of give a gentle and loving, get it together slap!

Things I know for sure:
-No amount of superficial hodge podge will make a physical house a home.
-Debt only brings guilt and is not God honoring.
-Joy is unconditional and found only through God and within.
-When I am spending myself on behalf of others I am not focusing on what I do or do not have in my possession and as a a matter of fact become much more grateful.
-The temptation on this earth will remain, but it is not worth missing one day in God's house!

So I am not going to give any prescriptions for you or myself on how to stop this crazy.  Today is just about getting it out there.  Being transparent with myself and you.  Keeping it real that I long after Jesus and to become more like Him and yet I still find myself focused on a diversion sometimes.

What is your diversion? How does it steal your joy?  How does it keep you from seeing what God really has for you?  Be honest and repentant if you need to be, but whatever you do be REAL!