A "people house"

We have been blessed with great houses. Not necessarily beautiful houses, but great "people houses", as I like to call them. A "people house" is a house that (1) is big enough to comfortably host lots of people, (2) is not ostentatious so people feel at home, (3) is kid friendly, and (4) is located centrally so people can simply drop by. Clearly our home in Augusta at 500 Regent Place fits all these criteria. It is why we bought it.

A few weeks ago we moved house here in Whitehaven. Our original home (we are just renting) was very comfortable, and by British standards, was quite large. However, it wasn't a "people house". The only table in the house was in the Kitchen so it was difficult having more than 4 people over at a time. We really thought that we would appreciate the reprieve from always having people over, but after 6 months, we realized that that is part of who we are as a family. We therefore decided to start looking for "people house" here in Cumbria. This was a bigger act of faith than you might think. First of all, the options here are very slim, second we are constrained to a fairly small area due to the kids school, third, the house needed to be furnished, and 4th it had to be available when our existing lease was up.

I don't know why we so readily doubt God's provision. As soon as we decided to look, a house just up the street became available. It was perfect. To our surprise it wasn't going to be available until the very week our lease was up!

The house meets most of the "people house" criteria, except it's a little too fancy (ostentatious) for us. Oh well, it reminds me of God's lavish and undeserved goodness to us.