How to Practice Gratitude for Your House So You Can Start Loving Your Home
Learn more about creating a beautiful and clutter-free home on a budget, loving your home, and investing in it.
What if you don’t love the home you happen to have in this season? What if it’s in the wrong neighborhood? Or it doesn’t look like the farmhouse home you’ve imagined in your head? What if it’s a rental or military housing? Well, here’s the truth.
There is no perfect home. There really isn’t.
The House You Have Now
But there is the home that you have right now. The one that God has provided for you in this season. And you and I both can learn to truly love our homes in spite of all their imperfections. We can learn to see through new eyes and make the most of where we live right now.
I’m a dreamer. I look at ALL spaces and see them for what they one day could be. A little paint here and a little laminate there and things take shape in my imagination. I can dream up all sorts of fixes and improvements. When I see an imperfect house with my eyes, I see it as its best self in my imagination.
But I’m also a realist. I know that where I am right now—at any point in my life—needs to be enjoyed or at the very least appreciated. Even if that’s not yet what my imagination pictures.
If you live in a house that is less than you’d hoped for, you don’t have to be miserable. You don’t have to hate it.
Of course, you can make improvements as your time and budget allow. You can follow all the steps and shape your house into the home you want it to be. But if you can’t make as much progress as you’d like as quickly as you’d like (we are such impatient beings!), you can still appreciate the home you have right now with a few simple steps. Did I tell you that breaking big things down into manageable steps is my superpower?
Start Loving Your Home
Believe it or not, loving your home is possible. Here’s how to do it.
First of all, make a list of the things you like or even love about your house. You can do this in your head, but it really helps to write it down. Is your house on a great street? Does it have a great view? Maybe there’s a main floor laundry room? A pretty front door? Or maybe, if it needs a lot of work and you can’t see anything good about it, you can love it for the simple fact that it’s a shelter from the storms of life (both literally and figuratively) for this season. Write down any and all good things about your house. Post this somewhere you will see it often.
Next, as you find yourself going about your day, when you think something negative about your house, look at your list and say something out loud that you’re thankful for from the list of things you just wrote. This simple act of seeing it and speaking it out loud helps to instill it in your brain.
Finally, whenever you’re praying, be sure to include a prayer of thanks to God for the things on your list. For the shelter your home provides. For the beauty that is there, even if it’s invisible still. Pray something as simple as, “Dear Lord, thank you for your provision and the gift of our home. Thank you that it provides shelter and a safe place for our family to live and for friends to visit.”
The more you focus on the positive things that are part of your home right now, the easier it will be to appreciate it and truly be thankful for your home without having to deliberately concentrate on the positive. Even if it’s not your dream home!
Reflection:
- Make a list of all that you are thankful for about your home and thank God for His gift of a home.
- Say out loud two of your favorite things about your home. There’s beauty all around us, even if we forget about it sometimes!
If you want to learn more about creating a beautiful and clutter-free home on a budget and loving the home you already have, check out Home Made Lovely by Shannon Acheson.
Shannon Acheson (homemadelovely.com) is a mostly self-taught designer, decorator, writer, and stylist. Although she has completed her interior design training, she’d much rather teach you how to decorate your own home than do it for you. She is the editor and designer behind the design and lifestyle company and blog Home Made Lovely. Her happy place is in the suburbs of Toronto, where she is a Homebody with a capital H, a Jesus girl, a happy wife to Dean, and a homeschooling mom of three teenagers.
