Smack in the middle of Park Ridge and whats famously known as the East Side.
I am in walking distance of Magnolia as well as the Historic District of North Knox.
This is the street where twenty-thirty something young professionals meet and the ladies walk the streets at night regularly.
This is the couple of blocks where more than a handful of my neighbors have composts in their back yards, and the others have low riders with huge subs in the trunk sitting in their driveway.
This is the porch sitting community. The place you take your kids on afternoon walks.
This place is not just where "North Knox" and "East Knox" collide.
This is our home.
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If you know me at all you know that a huge passion, value, or ideal of mine is to live in community with Gods people. And for awhile now I have been able to live that out in several different ways. Always providing an adventure, learning experience, challenges, and preparing me for when I have a home of my own, and I get to share it with others.
I've dreamed for years of a big house with enough room for a football team size family.
A kitchen table that never seems to run out of room for my big boys, and baby girls.
Space for friends and neighbors to seek rest, fellowship, and love.
This past summer I shared 400 square feet with four other bodies and somehow we still managed to make room for guests to eat and hang out. I really believe that our homes are meant to be places of refuge and recuperation after a chaotic day in the world, but for people that do not have that space of their own... I also feel called to have a willingness to share resources and create a place that welcomes everyone.
Since moving onto Jefferson Ave I have been stretched and challenged in my own beliefs of communal living, and how sometimes you have to put your desires or comforts to the side in order to really look like Christ to the community you're in.
Last night my house was full of beautiful, giggly, creative, patient, loving, little girls. My heart was overflowing so much I had to step away for a few minutes to make sure I wasn't going to break down in tears. It was as simple as watching them play in the backyard and being willing to help clean up the house. It was how they loved on each other and how desperate they were to just have a place away from their reality for a few hours.
A place they can get their hands messy making cake pops, and jam out to some Beyonce in the living room for a dance party. A place they could play, be heard, encouraged, share in the food and fellowship of each other. All we did was open our home and watch the rest unfold.
I never want to take that for granted.
