Someday We’ll Have Our Forever Home, But I Love Our Right Now Home

Someday, I will have a kitchen with more than two feet of counter space. 

Someday, I will have a living room big enough to fit a couch AND a recliner.

Someday, I will have a house where my son and daughter won’t have to share a room.

Someday, I will have main floor laundry where I don’t have to don shoes and walk across a grimy basement floor to get to it.

Someday, I might even have more than one bathroom.

Someday, I won’t have to fret over whether my wall color is too dark or if it makes the already tiny rooms feel even smaller.

Someday, I might have a house with enough space to have my own little oasis with bookshelves and room for all of my hobbies.

RELATED: Our House isn’t Fancy, But it’s Our Home

Someday, I just might have room to bring my old Papasan chair out of my parents’ house and into my own house.

I always imagined that someday being in the distant future. My husband and I had agreed long ago that when his business was paid off we could look for our dream forever home.

Every frustration I voiced out loud about our current little first home, every “I wish we had” that I told him about, every “we need more space” I commented about, he would assure me that my patience would pay off.  

Someday we will have all of that.

Until suddenly, someday wasn’t so far away. 

My husband commented on a home he had found one day, and I reacted passively as always.

“Don’t get my hopes up,” I’d say like always. We still had another six years of paying on the business to go. I counted down the years to that moment like a kid counts down the days till her birthday or Christmas.

The very next day he came home with excitement, “I talked to the bank, we can get the house!” A whirlwind of emotions hit me like a hurricane, I’m talking instant brain implosion. 

RELATED: You’re Not Raising a House, You’re Raising a Family

What? No, we still have six years. We don’t have the money. Why would we move right now? I just planted my garden! We can’t leave here, I’m not ready to go.

You see, I realized in an instant how much this tiny house I had numerous complaints about really, truly meant to me.

This is where we moved in together. This is where we dated. This is where we grew our life together. We got married in the back yard for Pete’s sake! We brought our babies home here. Every single memory of our life together is wrapped up in the neat little ball of this home.

My very first reaction to the news of moving was heartache. I instantly regretted everything negative I had ever said about my tiny little home.

But alas, logic took over. We did need more space. The kids can’t share a room forever, granted they are only one and four now, but in six years our daughter would be 10, definitely not an appropriate age for a girl to be sharing a room with her 7-year-old brother.

We scheduled a viewing of the new house.

As we strolled through the rooms, I began to imagine all the changes I would make to make it home. All of the dreams I had for our perfect forever home.  My brain swam with visions, and I started to feel giddy about moving again. We put in the offer as soon as we left, and by the next day, we had an answer.

We didn’t get the house.

The initial reaction I had was one of defeat. We didn’t get it. All of those swimming visions in my head vanished in a puff of smoke.  

But the feeling didn’t last.

RELATED: This Home May Be Old and Well-loved, But it Holds Our Precious Memories

As I sat the next day and thought about it, reflecting on the entire previous week of our lives, I knew in my heart God had something else in mind. Maybe something better, maybe just something different, maybe another time. Either way, I knew it was meant to happen this way because as I sat with my babies in our tiny first home, I realized . . . 

It’s OK that we didn’t get it. Our time is coming when we will have a home we have dreamed of. But for now, I’m content. Some day we will have our forever home, but I’m OK staying in our first home a little longer.  

And maybe, just maybe, I’ve learned to appreciate it a little more. I don’t complain about it anymore, and I try to soak up each and every day I’m blessed with living in it because those days are now numbered. Some day, soon, we will no longer live in the house we made our first home.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

Articles by Erin Berndt

Erin Berndt

Erin Berndt and her husband moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for just a few years, 25 years ago, and have raised their three sons and various cats and dogs there. Erin has been teaching high school English for 26 years. Although most of her writing has been done in red ink over the years, she likes nothing better than to write about her family’s escapades.