I have a notebook on my bedroom dresser where I write down important plans. In it, the other day, I scrawled a few thoughts I had in mind for our new house.

“What new house?” you say.

Well, the “new house” of my imagination, that’s what.

Not too long ago, I watched a YouTube video where a lady with a large, growing family was giving a tour of her new home. It wasn’t a mansion, but it definitely was an upgrade in many ways. As I watched this video, I was very happy for her, of course; I also started to feel a little sorry for myself.

Here she was, saying they had decided to move because they felt their old house was getting too cramped for them. Ha! I thought wryly. How nice that must be; I wish I could do that.

The Bible says to “cast all our cares upon God” (1 Peter 5:7), so I set about to do just that. I got out my notebook and wrote down everything I would like to have in a house. I didn’t leave any detail out. Resting my notebook on my lap, I prayed:

God, if you want us to have a house like the one I’ve imagined, You can make it happen. I believe that with all my heart. But if that’s not your will, then help me be content with the one we have.

Then I closed my notebook and set it back down on my dresser.

Shortly after that, one of my daughters came into my room and showed me a verse she had cut out of her Sunday School lesson so she could keep it safe in her own special notebook. It said,

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Luke 12:15 (NIV)

I had to read it twice, so amazed I was at the uncanny timing. Had I been greedy? Well, I don’t know, maybe I had. And Jesus was saying in this verse, “Watch out! Be on guard against it!” Perhaps I had been caring too much about my possessions and had been taking for granted more important things.

Why make such a big deal out of something that won’t last? I’m sure when we’re on the other side looking back, we won’t care about the house we used to live in, or the dress we bought on Amazon, or whatever.

Just Enough

The Lord’s Prayer says, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and we pray this as a way of asking for God’s provision. God is certainly faithful to provide for us — but we often expect more than our daily share. If God wants to drench us in prosperity, so be it! He might choose to do so, and we should be thankful when He does! But what if in His wisdom He decided to give us just enough? What then?

God has many things for us to learn, and one of them is contentment (seems as if this is an ongoing struggle for me). Is it possible that at times He intentionally withholds certain comforts in order to help us aquire this extremely valuable character quality?

“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Phillipians 4:11

In the verse above, Paul says he had to learn to be content. That means we don’t always have it naturally. In that case, how can we get it? Probably from not having some of the things we want and feel we’re entitled to.

We have to learn that life is not all about stuff and worldly accomplishments (like graduating to a bigger house) — by having stuff and worldly accomplishments withheld from us. It stinks sometimes, but what other way is there to learn this lesson?

A Matter of Perspective

So much of contentment is a matter of perspective.

Can I change the way I look at my surroundings? Can I see them in a more truthful light? Can I value the different aspects of my life according to God’s system of measurement?

The house we live in — as necessary as I believe it is to make it a pleasant and orderly environment for our family — is really just a shell, a shelter from the elements. It’s a place where things happen and people live; we must never forget that those things that happen and those people who live here are more important than the place in which they happen.

For example, my husband is one of the hardest working men I know! I really have no good reason to feel sorry for myself. He is super dedicated to his family, laboring by the sweat of his brow to make ends meet. He has sacrificed his sleep and his energy to be our provider, and he has been faithful at it. When I remember all this, I feel extremely blessed and grateful to have such a wonderful husband. Gifted with a very generous nature, he withholds nothing from his family that his own two hands can give us. He takes satisfaction in knowing that he is able to provide a quality of life for us that is both stable and pleasant, though it is a simple, humble life.

You might say he fits the description of the following Psalm:

“Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever.” Psalm 112:1-3

God says the man that fears Him and delights greatly in His commandments is blessed. His children will be mighty on the earth. Wealth and riches will be in his house.

The psalmist may be referring to the economic stability & prosperity that often comes from living with integrity, working with diligence, and being obedient to God’s Word. Yet I wonder if we could also understand theses verses to be referring to more than one kind of wealth? After all, who delighted more in God’s commandments than Jesus Himself — yet He had “nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).

And what kind of wealth might that be? I believe one type is “people wealth.”

How Much is a Person Worth?

Would you say that a person is worth the equivalent of a million dollars? Or worth as much as a 4,000-sqare-foot house? Or a walk-in closet full of fashionable clothes? How about this: is a person worth the same as the value of more convenience? more space? less stress?

Wonderfully, God has been blessing us with a “mighty” lot of children (nine so far). Only time will tell if their witness and influence turn out to be just as mighty as their number. The fruit of the womb is God’s reward (Psalm 127:3-5), so you could definitely say that we’re “rich” in children!

Every child is a priceless jewel. We have riches walking and hopping and running and smiling and singing and playing all around us! These little mess-makers are gems in childrens’ bodies.

Over the past few weeks as I’ve been preparing this post, I’ve been looking at my children, thinking about how special they truly are. Such miracles! (Psalm 139:13-16). Each one of them is a fresh, new thought from the mind of God, a life He planned and set into motion for His own sovereign purposes, a living soul made for eternity.

Surely, no man can put a price on the value of their lives.

I believe that in God’s eyes, we are richer than millionaires, and He certainly has fulfilled His Word to bless us with a house full of “wealth and riches.”

I’m not gonna lie and say I tore my notebook up. After considering these things, though, I do feel I have a much clearer perspective. I cherish my husband and children even more than before. Graciously, God’s got me back on the right track (again). I’ll wait and see what happens with that “new house”; and if it turns out to be nothing, I’ll be alright.

You may like to read the following related blog post:

Abundance & Prosperity: Discerning What This Means for the Christian

House Tour

Now you know: we haven’t moved to a new house. We still live in the same one we’ve been living in for seven years. And since we first came here the total size of our family has been upped from seven to 11, except our oldest just moved out recently, so now we’re down to just 10 (in an approximately 1,100-square-foot, double-wide manufactured home).

This has required some creativity on our part.

I will show you what we’ve been doing lately to make things work. Get ready for Our Small House, Large Family Home Tour! This post shows the changes we’ve made since I published Tour of Our Tiny Home in 2018.

I’ll also be including a few helpful Tips throughout the tour that I hope will be useful to you in managing your own home!

Master Bedroom

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• That ugly wall at the back. It used to be Behr’s “Praying Mantis” green, but the paint started to peel off the wallpaper, so we went ahead and peeled it all off. The paint’s not really the garish shade of green it appears to be in the photo; it’s actually a very pale, relaxing color. I’ve been meaning to fix the wall (for the past few years, I just realized) but it hasn’t happened yet. Hopefully, soon . . .

• The bed arrangement. My husband and I share a king-size bed with the baby (I keep the baby with me to nurse him). Despite what some people say about babies needing to learn to sleep through the night by themselves in a separate crib (or even a separate room), I believe that co-sleeping by bedsharing has been the best setup for us. The two-year-old sleeps in the crib next to our bed.

• The single dresser for both my husband and I to store our clothes. In addition to this dresser, we have a small walk-in closet. An arrangement like this would help anybody learn to minimalize! I take advantage of cheap plastic drawers from Walmart for the toddler’s and baby’s clothes (not pictured).

• My “nursing chair.” I used to have a glider, but it got broken, and besides that it was a tad too big for our tiny room. This portable folding chair works really well. It’s easy to move around and can be put on top of the bed (folded) while I’m vacuuming.

Kids’ Closet

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• This used to be a small bedroom where our oldest two boys had a black bunk bed, but a short while ago we decided to move most of the children’s clothes, shoes, and personal items to this room. Basically, we converted the bedroom into a large walk-in closet.

• Clothing racks. There’s a little more closet space to the right, past the clothing rack in the center of the room, but I didn’t include a photo of it. In that space there are a couple more small, built-in clothing racks, in addition to the two moveable ones you can see in the photo above. That’s a total of four racks for all the children except the toddler and baby, who have their clothes in my room and don’t have any clothes that need to be hung up.

• The dressers. There are four of them (one is not pictured). The beige one is shared by the three middle girls, with their clothes in columns (left side, center, right side). The brown one is mostly used by the oldest girl, with one drawer reserved for some of the younger girls’ things. The one not pictured is for our 12-year-old son, and the red one is being saved for when the toddler needs to move his clothes out of our bedroom.

• The baskets you see stacked on top of each other are for the kids’ dirty clothes. The children are responsible for washing their own clothes when their baskets get close to full. The older ones help the younger ones do this.

• The plastic drawers from Walmart I mentioned earlier are also good for stashing shoes! One thing I’ve noticed about this, though, is that it doesn’t give the shoes much of a chance to air out. I definitely wouldn’t recommend putting sweaty shoes in the drawers — at least not until they’ve had time to dry!

• We also store some craft supplies, puzzles & games, bed linens, and curtains in this room (see below). The kids’ “special boxes” (plastic storage boxes where they keep their most cherished items) are beneath. They fold and place their pajamas on top of these during the day, and they put their clothes for the next day here during the night.

• What I hope you DIDN’T notice but probably did anyway. I don’t think they vacuumed before these photos were taken. Oh, well. I was pregnant at the time and too tired to care. You may have seen that the beige dresser is getting pretty worn out; I keep it because it’s so big and sturdy. It gets a lot of use, so I don’t think it’s worth repainting just yet.

Girls’ Bedroom

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• Can you believe it? There are FIVE mattresses in this tiny room! I’m much happier having most of the children’s clothes, shoes, and personal items in the other room now — so much less clutter.

• How the beds are made. All the beds in this room do not have a flat sheet, only a fitted one. I discovered a long time ago that children have a hard time managing several, large pieces of fabric. I keep things simple by typically using only one fitted sheet, one regular blanket, plus one extra nap-time blanket, per bed. Each child is also usually allowed to have one stuffed animal and one extra pillow in addition to their regular pillow.

• The tall dresser in the corner stores the youngest girl’s clothing. Since her clothing only occupies the bottom four drawers, one of the other girls has decided to store some of her things in the top two. This is the last of the chests of drawers our children use.

• Under the beds. Under the bunk bed on the right, there are several large, plastic storage bins where I keep extra blankets and a few other things. Under the bunk bed directly to the front, there are a few flat, plastic storage bins where I keep winter items that won’t fit in the drawers: beanies, warm headbands, scarves, gloves, and leg warmers. Since I don’t have a lot of room, I take advantage of storage space under the beds.

Living Room

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• The futon couches. After moving the boys out of their miniature bedroom we had to put them somewhere; it seemed to us that the only solution was to buy them these futons. We store extra blankets and pillows for them in the storage closet (the white door to the right, which leads to an entryway we use instead for storage — this is also where we keep several large, plastic tubs for the children’s clothes that they’re not currently wearing).

• Window treatments. The windows were replaced with new ones, and I took advantage of the opportunity to put up new curtain rods and curtains. The blinds were special-ordered from Home Depot; they are cordless, blackout cellular shades. I’m still really happy with this purchase, more than a year later.

• The flooring. If you look closely at my previous home tour article, you will note that the living room used to be carpeted. Thankfully, we were able to continue the reflooring project we began in the dining area by extending the wood laminate into the living room. We still haven’t replaced the tile. I don’t know if we ever will, but we’ll see.
  • I was so happy to be able to get the 5 x 7 rug (right before these photos were taken we cleaned it outside by hanging it up and hosing it down with the pressure sprayer; that’s why it has a crease in it, which later relaxed so the rug was completely flat).

• Shelves. You may have noticed that we took out the middle shelving unit from the entertainment center and replaced it with a desk (we got a new desk chair and small rug to go under it). The TV screen doubles as a computer monitor. What a space saver!

No, it’s not usually this clean and picked up! (in case you were starting to feel a little discouraged).

You want to know a little secret? We worked really hard to make this room look good for the photo so it would hopefully be a small inspiration to you; on the day we took it, the rest of the house was not nearly as nice and neat. I took pictures of all the rooms on separate days because I couldn’t manage to get everything photo-worthy all at once.

Now, we do try to keep our house tidy. All the kids are expected to keep up with their chores, and when they make a mess they are required to pick it up. But with as many people as we have living here it isn’t realistic to expect that it will be perfectly tidy all the time.

Reality is more like you clean up the living room and five minutes later the two-year-old dumps out his blocks so he can build tracks for his cars. I’ve gotten really good (most days) at just shrugging my shoulders and pretending not to notice when things get messy.

Dining Room

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• The handmade table. Our oldest son made this 9 1/2 ft x 2 ft 10 in table almost entirely on his own (he had very minimal help from his dad). What a great carpentry/design project! The table surface is made of two layers: Bottom = particle board, Top = small sections from old pallet boards glued on top of the particle board. There is a layer of polyurethane and then a coating of epoxy over the pallet boards. This table was made to fit the specific dimensions we needed for our ten chairs (which we found on Craig’s List for $10 each) and to make the best use of the available space in our dining area. (Please see the previous photo of our living room for a close-up of the top surface of the table.)

Kitchen

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• Small counter space managed by placing appliances and other necessary items strategically. In my Managing a SMALL Kitchen video on YouTube, I explain how I make this little space work for our needs.
  • I have a basket for all incoming mail, and separate file holders (laid flat) to store our magazines (see previous photo of our dining room). This keeps clutter off the counter.
  • I only have our most-used appliances (the ones we use daily) on the counter (any others are stored in cabinets — or if I don’t really need them, I just get rid of them).
  • We try to keep the dishes off the counter by rinsing them right away and putting them in the sink to be washed after each meal (we don’t have a dish washer).
  • There is a three-tiered set of baskets to the right (not visible in the photo) where I put our vitamins and fruit. Very convenient storage solution!

School Room / Play Room

THINGS TO NOTICE ABOUT THIS ROOM:

• This is where we keep most of our school books and supplies. We don’t have a lot of room, so I have to be picky about what we keep. I love having books of our own! I agree with Sonlight (the main homeschool curriculum we use) that it is so special (and convenient!) to have books at home that are just yours. You can read and re-read them as many times as you like, knowing they will always be there — kind of like good friends. So, I make an effort to organize things in such a way that we can comfortably house our most special “friends.”

• Toys. The children have one metal shelf, plus a stack of plastic drawers and a little space on top of a couple book shelves to store all their toys (we changed our rule about toys a bit since I first mentioned it in my post about eliminating clutter). We don’t have any more room for toys than this, so we go through them about every six months to a year to see what we need to give away to make room for incoming (new) toys.

• New upright freezer. This was not in our previous home tour. We were able to buy a brand new freezer at half price at Lowes because it had a couple small dents in the door. It was an amazing deal! People were selling used freezers on Craigslist for the same price we got this new one.

• Keyboard. Maybe you noticed that we have a new keyboard. Our oldest daughter bought this for herself. We used to have a real piano, which I got rid of to make room for an electronic keyboard. We still have the electronic keyboard, but it doesn’t have a full range of keys, which is what she wanted. She has been playing with the youth group worship band at our church, so she felt she needed to practice on something more like a real piano. I’m so proud of her! She has been teaching herself how to play many songs.

I think this is an appropriate place to point out that without this extra room, I don’t know what we’d do! I am so thankful that God answered my prayer for a “sunroom” when we were searching for houses.

You know, He actually gave me every, single thing I had specifically asked for. Amazing! It leads me to wonder . . . if I had asked for more than a few meager things at that time, what would have happened? Well I didn’t, so here we are, but it’s okay because I think there may be some lessons God still has for us to learn while we’re here.

As We Conclude the Tour . . .

Though our house often seems cramped to me, I am very grateful for all the ways God has blessed us!

Part of that blessing involves His provision for our needs.

Another part of that blessing involves how we’re learning to be content with that provision and be inventive in finding creative solutions for living in a small home on a single income with a large family.

But the best part of God’s blessing involves the way He’s teaching us to value the people in our home more than the the house itself or the stuff inside it.

As much as I hope this post has given you some practical ideas for how to organize your own home, my greatest desire is for it to be an encouragement for you to view your home life according to God’s eternal value system, not society’s. Wherever God has placed us, with resiliency, faith, and patience we will be able to overcome and thrive!

~Jessica

Other posts you may be interested in:

Ways I’m Eliminating Clutter in My House

Poor But at Peace: The Beauty of Humble Simplicity

5 Practical Steps to Wonderfully Transform your Home through Minimalism!