Mustard Seed House

My house has a name. I've loved naming things since I was a little girl. Anything was fair game. Animals -- real & stuffed. All of my model horses. Family cars -- Bluebell, Penny, PJ (Puddle-Jumper) and Tanya (?!). Giving my children names rich in meaning and import has been one of the greatest joys of my life. And ever since living in the Cayman Islands and seeing spectacular homes with names like "Sea Grape House" and "Kailypso," I have wanted to have a named house. But named houses are generally rather pretentious, and our house could be called a lot of things, but pretentious is not one of them.

Mustard Seed House is a little house -- about 1000 square feet. There are five of us sheltered in this small space. My girls, Bean and Bear, share a bedroom which is not so bad, but my son, Bug, sleeps in the laundry room. Or should I say, we do laundry in my son's room, er, the "multi-purpose" room. And we literally live in our living room, all five of us all the time, except when Mr. Wonderful is out in The Lair.

The area rug that was in the living room when we bought the house has migrated out to the garage, as has Mr. Wonderful's rabbit-eared television from his high school days, an ancient wooden office chair from my grandmother and an old table from my other grandmother. And don't forget the Cubs pennant; we are eternal optimists, if nothing else! This cozy tableau is situated right next to the cat box and bins of hand-me-down clothes, and it is where you will find Mr. Wonderful when you have scoured through all the other vast wings of the house looking for him. I guess, every guy needs his own space.

But I digress. Why is this blog called Mustard Seed House? Well, like the paths in my brain, the answer is a little complicated, convoluted and difficult to follow. But I'll try to do my best leading you through my meandering thoughts.

First of all, I don't want to live with an ungrateful spirit. My grandfather lived with a much larger family in a 12 x 12 log cabin with a lean-to kitchen and an uninsulated sleeping loft for thirteen years in MINNESOTA! They would sleep under horse blankets and wake up with snow covering them. ("When I was your age . . .") Who am I to complain? If we stay in this house forever, I'll still probably live better than 95% of the people on earth. So the mustard seed is a perfect metaphor and reminder to me that my small house holds huge potential. Potential in my children. Potential in my marriage. Potential to bless others and each other. Potential to grow into something beautiful and strong.

It is apropos that I stumbled across the mustard seed metaphor in a recent article. One of my favorite items inherited from my great-grandmother is a small mustard seed pin. Apparently mustard seed jewelery was all the rage decades ago, much like the WWJD phenomena a few years past. The allusion is, of course, to Matthew 17:20 where Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." That's the kind of faith that I want to foster in my home. Faith that can move mountains and do the impossible.

So welcome to Mustard Seed House, where a little faith goes a long way. As I sojourn here, I hope you'll join me for the journey as I look to grow my faith, celebrate the little things and find abundance in simplicity.