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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

What an Old House Can Teach Me about Love.

September 2, 2016 by HappyGoStuckey 3 Comments

In this blue house with black shutters and a screen door that slams– we are home. The newish paint covers old masonite that crumbles as squirrels sharpen their teeth. The deck was painted this side of five years ago, but with each hard rain a few more shards of colonial grey wash through the life-worn beams.

Surrounded by odd electrical wiring and a handful of mystery creaks– this blue house has become the thing we always have to work on.

oldhouselove

Last year we installed locks on a bay window that consistently crept open. From first light until bedtime, the window slowly opened about two inches. Amidst the hum of the dishwasher and the din of our day, soft little slams could be heard as we walked through the kitchen, closing the window as we went. Grab the electric bill from the counter, slam. Pull a mug of rewarmed coffee from the microwave, slam. Stir the marinara, slam. Find the forgotten baby-doll before nighttime prayers, slam. One trip to Lowe’s for window locks and no more slams. Problem solved.

The next day I noticed a spidery crack in the wall of our bedroom and one more by the doorway. Because, it’s always something. No matter how many Friday nights we spend at the hardware store, we will never have a brand new house. It isn’t really a problem, it just is. We can remake every single board and roof tile– but we will still have an abode with many years to its’ credit. And I love that. It is more than character– it is tangible life. It is the evidence that we not only live here, we love here. 

My eyes choose not to see the chippy front porch paint because it is the evidence of a house stretched to fit more. With every footfall that scrapes a few more slivers of black, I count us lucky. Beyond lucky to be here in this house that is our home. Shards of paint equal more feet scaling our steps.

With every new issue that appears, my sighs of exasperation are often sighs of delight. Because this house, this family, this marriage– I’ve known it all long enough for things to need to be repaired. And even though these four walls around us are much older than our family of four– I see similarities between this house and us.

We’ve known this love long enough to wear out many of our wedding gifts and we have begun to feel the age in our couch.
But it’s all a gift. This favor of one more day, month, year.
I find it a gracious beauty that this life keeps going. And though the toaster may need to be replaced for the second time, we are still just getting started.

Because the longer we live, the more we get to fix. The more we know life within this house, it fills us with more than snapshots and splinters. For every time we discover something to be improved that makes us groan and ask, “how much–” there are at least a dozen moments of deep, happy, sighs, just from the living. When we sit on the porch and read or share waffles at the kitchen table. When we dog pile on a tiny twin bed to pray out the day— or nestle our whole family on aforementioned couch– I know the messy is magnificent.

I know that life as a family– with its’ frenzied, complicated elements is more perfect than perfect itself could be. And I know that each and every time we glimpse one another’s ugly bits, we come face to face with grace. Why we needed Jesus. Why we need Him still.

In every moment of frustration and work, we know it is worth it.
Worth the effort. The sweat. The elbow grease. The guttural sighs of not again. 

It is only in the privilege of time that we see that very work as a gift. That an investment in something, somewhere, someone we love– is always a bestowal of kindness to us (perhaps even more than to them?)
It is a treasure, not an imposition. Whether old house or humanity-frail family, the long, slow growth is the path to what we truly need.

In only nine years of marriage and a few less with this house, I know. I know that new love is exciting but growing in forever love is settling. If new love is a jolt of espresso— nine years love is a pot of soup– warming me to my toes and possessing the deep savory of simmering slowly for a long time.

I choose soup. I choose soup and walls that need a touch up any day.

 

“I don’t want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want You. … Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more ‘scope for imagination’ without them. …We’ll just be happy, waiting and working for each other—and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now.” –Anne Shirley, in Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Mid-Week Round Up (only the good stuff!)
Mid-Week Round Up (only the good stuff!)

Comments

  1. Morgan Elayne Tyree says

    September 3, 2016 at 9:30 am

    This is beautiful! Tangible life is the best kind of life. Thank you for these words.

    Reply
    • HappyGoStuckey says

      September 4, 2016 at 4:25 pm

      Thank you, Morgan! I so agree about tangible life being the best kind. <3

      Reply

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  1. Mid-Week Round Up (only the good stuff!) says:
    September 7, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    […] In case you missed it, Most recent post on HappygoStuckey: What an Old House Can Teach me about Love. […]

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Hey There!

I'm Cynthia and I'm so glad you're here. I am an introvert with an extrovert's love of gathering people together. I love good books and capturing moments. Whether you visit me here or on my own front porch, I'll be the one holding the Iced Coffee for us both.

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happygostuckey

Some of the rhythms we took up in ‘20 we will co Some of the rhythms we took up in ‘20 we will continue to sigh into in ‘21.
Baking sourdough, watching it bubble and rise and fill our BlueHouse with the scent of a good, long, posture of patience— I absolutely need a second serving of this.
While we wait, and whatever it is that we wait for— may the space between be made sweeter by the knowledge that we never wait alone.
You can’t tell by their joy, but the day I snapp You can’t tell by their joy, but the day I snapped this photo was somewhat of a regular day.

What looks like a winter beach vacation was actually the tail-end of a masked lunch stop in the middle of a pandemic road trip.

This sparkling moment of sun-splashed fun was sandwiched between brutal conversations about regular life, especially the hard parts.

And this is how it is. 
These bits of life that we never see coming, they are enveloped between all that makes us tired, weary, sighing pilgrims in a world that was never really meant to be hospitable in the first place.

This photo reminds me to look again at our year, our season, our circumstances.

To look a second and third time.
To keep looking as long as it takes to see that the joy of our right now isn’t gone, it just might be hiding in the shadow of all that’s hard.

Brokenness is never vague. And we don’t have to search very long to see it both within ourselves and around us.
Sometimes the weight of that fact is crushing.
And then, sometimes it reminds us even more clearly of the light shining in darkness.

Joy is an act of defiance against despair and I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling rather defiant at the moment.✨✨✨✨

@hopewriters #hopewriterlife 
#feastingandforaging #hopelenses #getaftergrateful
Endurance can feel like standing still. Especially Endurance can feel like standing still. Especially if what we’re called to be about is the same as yesterday and last month. 
It’s difficult to meet each day with the same fervor and joy for what we are called to do, especially when at present, the progress seems small and immeasurable. 
But even then, perhaps especially so — our faithfulness matters.

When we cannot yet see the other side, the light at the end of this particularly long tunnel, we begin again.

Not because we will always wake with fresh energies and bright, sparkling hope for what comes next, friend. But because the God of Endurance (Romans 15:5) dwells within us.

“It is the grace of endurance granted to you by the God of endurance that provides you with everything you need to continue to be what he calls you to be and do what he calls you to do between this moment and the moment when you cross over to the other side. When difficulty exposes the weakness of your resolve and the limits of your strength, you do not have to panic, because He will endure even in this moments when you don’t feel able to do so yourself.” — Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies

#hopewriterlife
Stuckey, party of two. Always ready to run out for Stuckey, party of two. Always ready to run out for paper towels... especially if the store is in convenient proximity to a quick date for croissants and dirty chai for two. Love my forever coffee companion even more at the start of this new year. Wherever he’s going, I’m riding shotgun.
We have learned... The inestimable value of a goo We have learned...

The inestimable value of a good camp chair, for they have been used for everything from soccer benches and coffee dates to theatre seats and church pews.

What our neighborhood streets can offer in the way of an outing—from the colors of spring to the sparkle of Christmas.

To hold plans with the loosest hands possible.

To rejoice in things found. Time. Margin. ...and enough toilet paper to share with a neighbor.

To give grace and accept it for ourselves.

The hilarious joy of a group text complete with “have you seen this meme yet?” 

To pivot. And then pivot again.

To find more joy in candlelight closer to home, instead of the bright lights of traveled cities.

To perfect our pizza dough recipe and truly learn to prefer it over dinner out.

To work with yeast and flour again and again— until the message of waiting for something really good dusted our apron fronts and kitchen floors.

And in our house, we learned how to be unexpectedly unemployed. We learned how to honor that new found space with needed grief and desired hope. How to be grateful for true friends who prayed with us, held questions with us, and hoped with us. We were reminded of our true identity and that it will never rest in a job. 

In a year in which we’ve all lost quite a lot, you and I have been given so much as well. Some of what we’ve lost we have learned to be without. Some, we won’t go looking for again.

In 525,600 minutes and in all the things, found and lost and found again— there is far and away more to be grateful for.

And we choose joy.

✨Happy New Year, dear friends!✨
Not rushing too quickly into a new year over here. Not rushing too quickly into a new year over here. Though the one in our rear view window is one we wouldn’t choose to repeat, still it was one full of God’s nearness.

One day I’ll write it all down.
But for now I’ll just say,
we were not alone. 🕯
“Once in our world, a Stable had something in it “Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”
C.S.Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

Joy to the World, friends.
Behold. The most apropos Christmas Eve 2020 desser Behold. The most apropos Christmas Eve 2020 dessert ever. Made from a wonky gingerbread cake that did not cooperate.
We shall not go quietly into 2021.
We will fight back with beauty and joy and candles... and fresh whipped cream made by an eleven year old with sparkly green eyes. 🎄❤️✨
Merry Christmas from the Fam! { 👉🏻 swipe for Merry Christmas from the Fam! { 👉🏻 swipe for Stuckeys in their natural habitat.) 🎄🕯❤️✨
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