A Simple, Story-filled Life - The One Year Women's Friendship Devotional

A Simple, Story-Filled Life

For the happy heart, life is a continual feast.

Proverbs 15:15

After Caroline was widowed and her children became adults and moved into their own houses, she sold the roomy family home and took only meaningful things to her new tiny condo. One day an out-of-town friend was visiting. Vicky and her husband had moved into temporary housing and never unpacked because they thought they wouldn’t be there long. As it turned out, they lived in that “temporary” housing for eleven years.

“How have you given such a sense of ‘home’ to this little place? You haven’t even lived here a year,” Vicky asked. Caroline began to tell her friend stories about the different pieces: the old brown tobacco basket that reminded her of the tobacco farm she’d grown up on in Kentucky, her great-grandfather’s rocking chair. A lamp and table she and her deceased husband had found at an antique store in their first year of marriage. On the bed and the wall, the colorful, soft quilts made by her grandma. The condo wasn’t cluttered with accessories she’d bought to impress people. It was the picture of simplicity—nothing fancy, but every piece full of heart, character, and memories. Instead of living in self-pity because she was alone, Caroline found life a continual feast and savored every moment. Vicky went home that day determined not to wait one more day to create a home right where she was.

Let me encourage you to do the same. Paint and fix up now, not later. When renting or buying a house, don’t wait until you’re putting it on the market to hang pictures and wallpaper and complete projects that would make it look more livable and comfortable. Think about what makes you feel at home. Is it a nook for your hobby? a throw to cuddle up in for an impromptu nap? a few green plants? a basket of books? Don’t lose out on these precious moments by spending your time imagining that perfect house you may acquire in the future. Make a place now to share life with those you love. —CHERI

Blessed Father, thank you for the place you have provided for me to live and eat, sleep and enjoy during this season of my life, and thank you for the people you’ve provided to share it with. Help me not to put off enjoying it until I have a dream house but to be grateful for your gifts and make the most of them now.

We have this moment to hold in our hand,

And to touch as it slips through our fingers like sand.

Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come.

But we have this moment today.

—GLORIA GAITHER, SONGWRITER AND SINGER