Finding a home - not looking for a house

There are at least 2 HP-ers that I know of who are on this path at the moment and I post this to encourage and hopefully, inspire.

Well, let’s go back over 20 years. We were newly married. I had to leave my beloved London to live in the ‘sticks’ as I saw life down here. I’d left a stunning 3-floored apartment that overlooked Hampstead Heath (I’d looked after it, rent-free for millionaire friends for several years) and all my friends, to move into the pokey little flat my husband had in Windsor, right under the Heathrow flight path, with aircraft screaming overhead from 5 am. Windsor in those days was not the interesting, alive and fun place it’s become, but was mainly a tourist spot, so when I went to the Post Office to buy stamps, I had to queue up behind huge lines of European schoolchildren sending their postcards. Going shopping meant fighting your way through thousands of tourists – I couldn’t wait to leave the place!

I’ve always loved the river and was thrilled when we found a new flat with balcony, in Eton, overlooking the river, but we just couldn’t find a buyer for Ian’s flat and then we were guzumped a few times with other properties too. It just seemed to go on and on like this for about a year. Disappointment after disappointment.

Then, one day, I found a sweet cottage I really liked in a little village outside of Windsor and not under the flight path. I just knew that this was the one. I used to come home from work and take a detour just to look at it. Well, we waited 8 whole months for the owners to find somewhere else. Property prices meanwhile were climbing (this was mid-80’s). I suggested to Ian that we should offer the owners more but he was furious as he believed (wrongly as it turned out) that the owners were deliberately not looking just so we would drop out and they could sell for a higher price. We had found a buyer for Ian’s flat and he was getting impatient too……..

Meanwhile, I started to have a physical problem. Those of you who know me here, will know that I reply solely on spiritual means for my health-care (why I didn’t do the same for my home-finding I don’t know!) When I wasn’t able to heal this problem through my own prayers, I went to see a Christian Science practitioner who lived in nearby Virginia Water. While we were talking, he said "It’ rather like a house chain – if one link breaks, the whole thing collapses." "Funny you should mention that" I said and told him the whole sorry story.

I left that meeting with my thought totally changed. I saw that a home isn’t a building – it’s the consciousness of good. A home doesn’t consist of 4 walls, a roof, a garden etc. but it consists of spiritual qualities, of love, of security, of beauty, order, safety, abundance, comfort, friendship, caring, patience, honesty, compassion etc. The most important thing to realise was that we already had a home (all those spiritual qualities) – we just didn’t seem to have anywhere to put it at the moment!

The consciousness of good (home) is a spiritual idea of God, divine Mind. Like a rose bud, the whole rose is already complete and perfect, but we can't force those petals open. I had to understand that our home was already there, already complete and it would be revealed at the right time and when I was mentally prepared for it.

Stanley gave me some quotes to ponder and pray with:

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass." (Ps 37)

And from the wonderful chapter on Prayer at the beginning of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy:

"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."

I drove back to Windsor relieved and elated and noticed an estate agent along the route that