Fence and rooftop.
That's all I'd have seen if I would have opened the blinds in our room.
As I stand at the edge of our bed and fold laundry...I glance at the window and long for fresh light to pour in. But as I move forward to shift the blinds open.......that's when I remember.
I remember that I don't live in wide-open space anymore.
I don't have a field, a garden, and trees out back. I have a tall, faded, wood fence and....neighbors....everywhere.
I don't look out my window and see lots of green. I look out my window and see lots of granules and asphalt - the tops of other people's houses.
When we traded pine trees for palm trees - we also traded five acres for just about five inches.
I feel all claustrophobic.
And my kids. Oh, my land-loving kids.
The oldest refused to go outside for the first month. Because after moving in - he attempted to play kickball...only to have the ball almost go into someone else's yard every time he kicked it. He tried to play t-ball...but the same thing happened. And the distance between bases? Centimeters. He tried to fly a kite - only to get it stuck in the neighbor's fence. And then he tried to just run around - but the pots and dips, holes and fire ants in this rented, untended backyard - made it annoying and...dangerous.
The look on his face when the kite got stuck.....it made my mama heart just about implode.
He and I...and the others too - we long to fully, slowly, breath in open air. We long for the freedom to wonder.
Not much of that will be happening here, however.
This is a house farm. A home sits every few inches...row upon row.
I could try to muster up some sweet and spiritual analogies here. I could write about how I have so many people right at my doorstep - that I get the opportunity to witness to and serve, daily. I could hash out how this could be a little lesson in gratefulness. I could talk about some perks of living in the city. I could show you some lining in silver.
But I'm not there today. Me and my miss-matched socks sprawled across my bed - we just aren't feeling it this Friday.
I miss the dirt clad feet the most, I think. I actually miss scrubbing dirt from the sole of a little foot....
Because bare, dirty feet on country clean ground - make for happy, content little children.
I do not know why the Lord brought us all these miles away to live in this mess of concrete. I do hope (and trust, yes) that it will unfold and faith will waft out of it all - but as for now....
I'll open my back blinds and stare at fencing and shingles.
And I'll consider how we make a mistake when we think that what God calls us to is always ideal. It usually isn't.
And with a husband who would move us to Africa and live in a mud-hut tomorrow - and a God who calls us out of comfortable and into the harvest....
fences and shingled rooftops might be something I look back on...
and actually miss someday.
Kinda like those happy little dirt clad feet.
