If I Lived in That House . . .

Jane: I don't know if this has ever happened to you, Betsey, but it has to me. Sometimes when I visit a friend's home and she's just done something amazing (added a beautiful garden, updated a kitchen, or bought new furniture, for instance), I'll secretly think, I want to do that too! I start comparing her stuff to mine--even, I might add, if we recently retiled or repainted or redid something ourselves.

Betsey: Oh, totally. But maybe not as much as I used to, because I really love our house now. When we lived in a smaller place, I was always aware of a low-level tension, like a low-grade fever, because I was never completely comfortable in my environment. I really, really struggled to be content like a good Christian girl. Then we were able to finally move and guess what? It HAS made a difference in my mental outlook, like one less thing to feel bad about.

But now the issue is, simply because we do have a nice house--I want it to be even nicer. So where when we first moved I was just content to have a house with a family room and a true home office, more recently I’ve wanted to redo the kitchen (like you guys did . . . ) and am contemplating what to do with our simple little patio. I worry a little about the “never good enough” syndrome.

It’s that phenomenon of rising expectations, you know?

Jane: I do know. We have a home with plenty of room for the two of us (and our rascally Labradors) and a yard I love. While it's no McMansion with all the bells and whistles and grand square footage, our modest home is filled with happy memories and the joy of everyday living. I have nothing to complain about. Compared to the rest of the world, I live like a queen.

However, because we're embedded in such an affluent region, sometimes I find myself getting caught up in that “never good enough” syndrome. Or maybe it's the “do I measure up to my peers?” syndrome. Anyway, at my age, I should know better—I DO know better—yet in this one area, I still catch myself experiencing a bit of what best-selling author Meghan Daum writes about in Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House: "There is no object of desire quite like a house. Few things in this world are capable of eliciting such urgent, even painful, yearning. Few sentiments are at once as honest and as absurd as the one that moves us to declare: 'Life would be perfect if I lived in that house.'"

Betsey: I think one way to channel all this envy and discontent is to learn from the improvements so-and-so has made, get ideas. Like I wouldn’t have thought of a backsplash like yours, but now I sort of want to copy it. And I like the skylight in your master bath. And I wish I had matching chairs like the ones you have in your . . . Sigh.


Jane: That's exactly what I do when someone else's house impresses me! For example, I fell in love with your hardwood floor—or, as I call it, The Floor of All Floors. When I see something beautiful that someone else has, my wheels really start turning. It's all part of this innate desire to create beauty within my home, which I actually believe is part of what it means to be made in God's image. However, the problem comes when those wheels spin wildly off-track, leading to the kind of excessive desire James 1:14 warns about: "Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away."

In the past, I had a serious wake-up call that helped me see this issue more clearly. Fourteen years ago, we underwent a life-threatening medical scare. I didn't know if my husband would survive it or if I'd be living in our home without him. Suddenly the house things I used to grumble about--walls that needed painting, furniture that was getting a little shabby—meant nothing, I mean absolutely nothing. With no beloved beside me, how important is a fancy house?

Thankfully Rich came through that crisis. And I thought I'd learned my lesson about house stuff. But it's funny how human nature works. You think you've passed the test, but then one day you discover--with some chagrin--that you need to keep on retaking the class . . .

Betsey: True. You never learn a lesson once and for all--guess that’s what keeps us dependent on a gracious, possibly amused, Lord. Oh, and as beautiful as The Floor of All Floors is, it’s a nuisance to keep clean. Anybody out there have tips for maintaining walnut?

Do you ever find yourself comparing your house with your friends' houses? What do you struggle with most when it comes to house envy?