Today I met my new realtor and we went house shopping. Unfortunately they do not have them in a big box store where you can compare price tags and see the same model in nine different colors and maybe put a Malibu Ken in a room to see how that works. Nope. You have to trek across counties, fiddle with lockboxes, and imagine, while squinting your eyes and turning your head sideways, how the Oliva dining set would look here or the drum playing would echo from there. I was totally wishing for Hermione’s magical purse so I could bust out my four-poster bed and try it in the owner’s suite.

The good news is I have a fairly good imagination. The bad news is it was immediately apparent that our stuff would look crappy in just about every house we looked at.

The problem wasn’t the houses. We looked at all new builds today. Beautiful hard woods, rich cabinetry, burnished copper railings. Newer and shinier than Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar.

Our “stuff,” however, is close to thirty years old and loved into shabbiness. It is time-worn and lived in. Like that favorite sweater you hang on to year after year and wear with both skinny pants and elastic jeans because it is comfy and holds memories in every size. Our stuff is beat up and repaired and has layers of family life splattered all over it.

So maybe it won’t immediately look at home in a new house. But I am sure we will scuff up, wear down, and personalize the new house so the old stuff will feel right at home in time for Jackie to break out his Risky Business moves on the beautiful hard wood floors. Instead of nicks from light saber fights or dents from remote control cars, the new house will have scuffs from banjo playing gone wild and scratches from car keys falling from pockets. We will fight and cook and play and love until the new house is home and our stuff would seem out of place anywhere else.

Lord, help us find just the right house to love!

So if the old way, which has been replaced, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new, which remains forever!
2 Corinthians 3:11