This world is not my home...

I have to keep reminding myself of that. I have to look to a home beyond this planet and remember that it won't be much longer...

I've lived in a small, not-at-all-maintained, one-bedroom flat for nearly 9 years now. The walls are mouldy, there are mushrooms growing behind the couch thanks to faulty damp-seal. My employer keeps promising a new house, a bigger place where my son doesn't have to sleep behind a couch in the lounge as "his bedroom". Room for me to actually have people stop by for a meal, room to breathe - where I don't have to hear every footfall (and other things) of the neighbours.

2 years ago the employer started building new houses. They're not done yet, but have been allocated to others. I missed out because it was assumed I would be moving to Australia.

I was hoping to be reconsidered for one of the two places - until yesterday. The new houses have now had their entire yards bricked and cemented over, giving no chance for a garden or a non-sterile space to be outside in God's creation. Besides the fact that they're built entirely of styrofoam, plastered over (which I could overlook as long as no-one started an oven fire...), this is just plain bad news. I have to wonder if the builder hates plants - he cut down a beautiful almond tree that wasn't in the way of anything, and now has permanently squashed any chance of a bit of grass or anything! As nice as space inside is, I can't live without green around me.

I'm really sad that they have done so many destructive things, so many no-thought things, while building these places, when there was potential for a great living space. (I hope they read Seven Keys to a Christian Home before they start the next batch!)

I'm frustrated that I will need to make do where I am indefinitely. With my parents coming out from Australia for a month later this year, it would have been nice to accommodate them in "style", in a room of their own that wasn't mine - but it seems it will be back to sleeping on the couch for me and living around each other in the little space we have.

I wish I could afford a house of my own. I wish I earned enough to even have that possibility. But houses in this area don't go for less than half a million bucks unless you're living under the power lines or next to the slums - way, way beyond my means. Houses for rent would cost most my monthly salary. I have to choke down jealousy when I hear of folk in the church buying a new house just to move nearer the church and their responsibilities there, or living in mansions they take for granted.

I'm stuck. No options.

Which is why I have to keep reminding myself that this world is not my home. And that God is planning something for me that is beyond my wildest dreams, more than I could hope for or dream of.

I need to count the present blessings of a roof over my head while others live in shacks. And let that frustration just drift away. Oh, it's hard. But if I don't it's gonna eat me alive.