Trying to make our apartment feel like home has been an endeavor. It is a constant game of rearranging, trying new things, and at times I feel as though it is a lost cause. What can one truly do with 650 square feet and one salary, with bills for grad school looming? As I look at our furniture, hand-me-down and used, laden with dust, an eclectic assortment of knickknacks, books, and items, I sigh. It’s the material “already,” but “not yet.” It is already home, because home is not just a place. I am grateful for “home,”. But with our specific “home” also comes the constant sprinkle of cat litter in the bathroom rug, the occasional  dead (or alive) bug, never quite clean enough cabinets and counters.

But today, on this particular Wednesday at home, I step back from a Wednesday afternoon cleaning frenzy and let out a sigh of relief. Candles that I recently purchased at Target are lit throughout, the aroma of coconut, lavender, and amber filling each room. The snake plant is is freshly watered, pointing high up the cream colored walls.  The kitchen counters shine, carrying hints of lavender and eucalyptus spray. The dusty carpet is now freshly vacuumed, and our sweet cat Chico drags his favorite toy across it. Light pours in through the windows in the living room onto the bookshelf, organized by color, topped with a cream vase and a couple of aesthetic books, another new candle burning. The bathroom is freshly cleaned, the sharp, familiar scent of Clorox. The bedroom is as in order as it can be , clutter tucked out of sight, out of mind. The bed, made and pillows fluffed, alongside de-cluttered nightstands, invites me to lay back and breathe. 

In this brief pause of rest, I wonder, is it okay to want things in order to feel peace? To maximize aesthetic potential in a place like ours– so temporary, so small, not at all a place that is instagram or pinterest worthy . I know that physical comfort is not everything. Very often, as I ponder what I can do next to make it “feel more like home”, there is a voice on my shoulder condemning me for such “trivial” and “material” pursuits. I hear Bible verses, ripped from their original contexts and twisted into my guilt laden thought stream: The Son Man had no place to rest His head…. What good it is to gain the whole world but lose one’s soul.  Life is not found in an abundance of possessions. It’s murky waters.  These Scriptures are my firm foundation, and yet they have been ripped from their homes in the Gospels and applied to my desire to buy a towel rack. What do these thoughts of wanting to avoid and flee the sin of materialism and unlearn the ideology of the American dream have to teach me? What do these longings for what many might call “comfort” or the “American Dream,” reflect about me as a person, and play a part of deeper and God given desires and longings?  Before I condemn my desire to reimagine the bathroom space or the living room, I realize that I have to ask these questions. 

Flashback to my early twenties. I am perusing the malls and the stores, looking for the “perfect” rug, shirt. Perfectionism and this desire for beauty consumed my time, energy, and thought life.  After hours of scouring amazon or stores, I would curl up in my bed heavy with guilt and shame in that I had just spent so much time in the material world. I vowed to give up spending money all together and just be content with what I have.  But since I have grown and matured in Christ, and even had a fresh reset on a new apartment in marriage, this longing for home, order, and peace is something I know I need to revisit. Guilt and shame are not the voice of God. So what is his voice saying to me? 

A voice beckons me to continue to press in and process this longing. I have since  named and recognized it as “my longing for beauty, creativity, order and for expression” . When you put it like that,  it feels more God-given. We see it in the garden; in God’s command for people rule over the earth and subdue it. Surely that didn’t mean buying out the home section at Target to match a Pinterest board, but before we equate clutter, minimalism, or lack of attention to aesthetic with godliness, it is worth stepping back and honestly examining our desires in light of this command. God commanded us to reflect his image by taking chaos and turning it into order. To work the land, to utilize our sight for beauty to make the world , his world a better place. Could that be, what I am longing for as I fight the constant entropy of our living room? How does this  longing ultimately point me to the “already and the not yet”. That is, the unfinished work, the restoration and redemption of all things, that we as believers long for during our time on earth, and are called to live in light of. 

I don’t want to be naive to the American dream. I know that the American Dream, and the idols of comfort, do saturate and distort these longings for comfort and for material things. I want to be sober-minded, knowing I am not immune to the lullaby of “more,” to linking satisfaction with the next purchase, the next upgrade, the next piece of décor. I’ll admit there are times I grow increasingly frustrated about, convinced life would be more “peaceful” if we were rich. If I had a walk-in shower that got hot, if there were an island in the kitchen, if our couch wasn’t slowly falling apart. If my home just looked like hers, my life, my car, my clothes , you name it, looked like hers. Pinterest, a organizer of ideas and creativity can quickly turn into the promised land, images of “the good life,” of comfort, beauty, and of perfection. But I also think there is a deeply godly gray space, a desire to make a house (or apartment) feel like home. A place to rest, to experience Shalom, and Sabbath, to invite others in.

 I am learning that denying that we have desires doesn’t really get you anywhere. You can suppress them in the name of faux contentment, but they often resurface and forced contentment often turns and manifests as quiet resentment.  But acknowledging them before God, leads to honesty, and peace. The narrative of guilt can be silenced when instead of condemning our desires, we let them point us to the ultimate desire we all long for– the ultimate expression of beauty, a place where there is no more chaos, clutter, disconnection or destruction. The new heavens and the new earth. Right now, we are in the “already and the not yet.” 

And so, it is okay, homemakers, artists, Pinterest fanatics, to desire creativity, expression, even a form of perfection in your space. Perhaps it flows from hospitality, or from a need for sanity, or from the reality that home is a refuge before going out to serve and be light in a dark world. The condemnation of every desire is not from the Lord. I am not advocating for the American Dream, but for bringing our desires before the Lord, who knows them already. It is about finding that gray space between contentment and gratitude, and honest desires, giftings, and passions. Some people care very little about these things, but that does not make them more spiritual. We all have longings, interests, and inclinations. How can we steward them for the Kingdom? After all, we were called to subdue, to steward what is in front of us. Jesus even says He is going to prepare a place for us. I don’t know if that means He has a Pinterest board of ideas, but I do imagine Him as hospitable, creating space for others to breathe, to be, to dwell in His presence.

I know this can sound like a first-world problem, and it is. We are among the wealthiest people in the world, even when we feel “poor.” The “more” monster is real. I want a heart rooted in gratitude, not consumed by fleeting pursuits. But I also do not want to dismiss the unique longings, passions, and giftings within us simply because they do not feel “spiritual enough.” God desires all of us, every part, to be redeemed and directed toward Him. So maybe next time I look at Pinterest photos, or light a candle, or feel the urge to rearrange a room, it would not lead to guilt but to reflection. The desire for beauty, for order, for cultivation these are all  good things. The desire for a space to breathe, and to offer that space to others, is not insignificant.

A Prayer: 

Teach me not to place my hope in earthly things, while also remembering that I am created to be creative, to bring order to chaos, to “subdue.” Maybe part of that calling is, quite simply, subduing this apartment. Show me what that looks like, Lord. Would that sense of incompleteness remind me of the eternal home I have in You.