That Hideous House

Disgruntled. Disappointed. Ungrateful. Those words sum up my reaction to our first village house in Guatemala. I was ashamed of myself for being so discontented.

Expecting to live under rustic conditions, I should have been thankful for the flush toilet, even though it was outdoors next to a bucket shower. I should have rejoiced that the floor was not made of packed dirt. I should have been thrilled with the luxury of running water from a spigot in the backyard, saving me the daily trip to the stream I had envisioned.

No matter how diligently I attempted to focus on the good, it was impossible to agree with my neighbors that I lived in a palace. To them, it was the nicest house in that end of the village. To me, it was pitiful. Downright hideous.

What bothered me most was not the lack of indoor plumbing or hot water. It wasn’t even the hand washing, wringing, and hanging out cloth diapers for our two baby boys. Although, I did complain about these inconveniences, as well as the daily hike to the market to haggle for food and to struggle with the Mayan Indian language we were learning. I grumbled about a good many things in those early days. What made me complain the most, though, were the colors.

Picture this if you will. The floor was red and yellow checkerboard design of crude tiles that bled cement powder when swept. The ceilings were lined in a different shade of red and painted a hideous shade of blue. In fact, they were the exact color of the crayon I never knew what to do with as a child. The doors were painted an ugly shade of maroon not even found in a Crayola box. All this clashed with my teal green bedspread.

The curtains were the crowning insult to my waking eyes every morning. Stapled to the wall, shielding us from the fish-bowl effect of village life as gringos, were makeshift drapes we had dug out of a missionary barrel. They were some hippie’s cast-off polyester fabric with a flower-power motif of bold orange, avocado green, and harvest gold.

Altogether, our little house was an interior decorator’s nightmare. With my preference for muted autumn colors, which were popular in the 1980s, I found the house to provoke all sorts of wicked thoughts. The only hope I clung to was that it was temporal. Never before had I pondered so deeply the unseen reality of a heavenly mansion. The color scheme of my temporary dwelling offended my senses in ways that caused me to rejoice in the promise of a lovely eternal home.

During visits back to the United States, I notice that women are generally not content with their houses, even with ones that could be featured in House Beautiful. Instead, my friends rationalize remodeling and/or rearranging the furnishings, trying to figure out what will make them happy once and for all. It occurs to me that this is a natural phenomenon. God has placed eternity in our hearts.

Whether we have a truly hideous house or a showcase home that has grown boring, we all long for a perfect place. Nothing on this earth will ever satisfy. Knowing this, perhaps we should stop trying so hard to fulfill our earthly desires and instead invest our time, energy, and resources in storing for ourselves heavenly treasures.

Thought for Today: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” C.S. Lewis

Prayer for Today: Lord, thank you for giving me longings that turn my heart heavenward. Show me how to gracefully endure the things of this world that prove unsatisfactory.

Scripture for Today: “This world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven.” Hebrews 13:14 LB

(This was previously published in Walk with Us Through Fields of Harvest, A Month of Missionary Devotionals, 2008, by Missionary Ventures International. I've added the photo of Chris and Tim so you can see the floor. It doesn't look as hideous as I remember. Wow, for a self-professed Pollyanna, I sure do grumble a lot!)

The outside wasn't too bad