This is our 3rd flat in London within the short period of 13 months we’ve lived here. I have the luxury of never needing to rent in my life—I don’t really count my student residence in university a rental. After two tiring weekends of planning, purchasing, and assembling, we feel more settled now that we have wardrobes to hang our clothes in, desks to study/write on, sofas to entertain guests, and places to stack our 8 large suitcases.
It’s nice to no longer have to live life out of a suitcase and cardboard boxes. There’s ample cupboard space in the kitchen and the bathroom. It’s quieter here—only the sound of church bells every 15 minutes. The neighbors in the block of flats actually smile when you catch their eye. It’s ultra-convenient in terms of distance to shops, night-life, the tube/bus stations, school/church, and even the hospital.
But living in a house as a tenant is different. The obvious difference is that one doesn’t OWN the house she is living in. So, I hear myself saying to the kids a lot, “Careful not to scratch the floor” and “Don’t sit on the cupboard door handles” and “This is NOT our place—let’s take care of our landlord’s place.” The only thing I need to get used to is the lack of light in this place—something I dread even more as the days are getting noticeably shorter.
I’ve noticed that I’m adopting a mindset that I have never really, truly understood and adopted before—being a tenant, a ‘renter’, has given me a new perspective about my life in general—that I live this life much like a tenant lives—like a traveller lives—I own little, but am grateful for all that I have. All my material possessions, experiences, and even my human relationships, are ‘borrowed’ and do not belong to me and yet, they exist to change/challenge me, to be enjoyed by me and with others, and to help me and others know/love God better. And just as we experienced recently, a time will come when the Landlord will need for us to move out and move on. And though, we can never prepare for the shock of that, I just need to make sure that I have all life’s essentials with me when I need to pack up and go. And in real life, at least, when it’s our time to leave this earthly life, it wouldn’t be so much that God is needing to ‘kick us out’, but it would be an invitation to move in and live with Him in His eternal home.
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