Do the Nice Things for Yourself, Because You’re Worth It

I thought I'd never do things their way.

Every time my family moved, my dad bought a piece of land and built a new house. Sometimes we lived in a rental or with my grandparents or in a pole building while dad was building.

The building process took anywhere from six months to a year, depending on how busy he also was with work to provide for our family. We always moved into the new house without painted walls or finished floors, because those were things that could be done later. As well-meaning as my parents might have been about refinishing the inside of the house when we first moved in, it never happened until it had to happen.

We were a mixture of redneck Mennonites and conservative gypsies as we moved across the country. Dad took us from New York to Kentucky to Florida to Montana to Michigan to Idaho to North Carolina.

We moved every three years. Each time dad decided to move again, we had a mountain of work to do to get our house ready to be put on the market. We were scrappy homeschoolers with Amish roots. Quite the combination, I tell you. But not one that I'm ashamed of... at least not anymore.

The stove sat on a concrete block until it was time to sell the house and then dad got busy laying rock around it to make it look beautiful. He taught me how to lay rock and tile so I could do it when he was too busy. Dad put his creativity into everything, so sometimes he laid the wood floors in a pattern or got two different colors of wood to lay in a striped pattern.

I got to practice my own creativity because of this. At 13 years old, I helped to texture the walls of the whole house with a rag technique. I took any chance I could to paint. That was when we lived in Idaho. When the walls were done, I stood back and looked at them with so much pride that I could have burst. Of course, I wasn't allowed to be proud so I acted like it was nothing when someone noticed the texture on the walls.

When the house was finished and ready to be photographed by the realtor, it was a thing of unique beauty. But we didn't get to enjoy it for long. The best was never meant for us — it was always meant for someone else.

Have you ever felt like you're not worthy of finished things, so you settled for living with loose ends and unfinished business? Have you ever bought into a lie that it's selfish to take care of yourself? Have you sacrificed what you wanted to try to make others happy?

When I bought The Cottage on Elliston in Nashville, there were a few things that I wanted to improve. It had already been fully remodeled, so it was nearly perfect, but I wanted to customize a few areas to reflect my taste. I ended up doing only one of those things. During my first year here, I switched out the dining room light for a unique one that I found and I've enjoyed it every single day. But life happened and I didn't get around to do the rest of the things on my list.

Last week, I replanted my flowerbeds. I called a plumber and got the leak under my kitchen sink fixed. I'm getting a new roof put on the house this weekend. My house will be repainted on Memorial Day.

I'm doing all these things to my house because, well, you probably guessed it, I'm moving. And I have to get my cute little cottage ready to put it on the market.

There's a smile on my face right now because I'm doing what my parents always did... I'm making things nicer in my house now because I have to, because it needs to be at its very best for its new owners. And that's okay... I understand why my parents did that now. No matter how nice a house looks, it always pays to do extra things to it before you list it on the market... That's just wise.

But what happens when we live a lifestyle of never making things nice until we have to, or only doing it for someone else? Have you ever done this?

Our value for ourselves is reflected in how we take care of what belongs to us. It's reflected in how we dress our bodies and wash our faces. Do we value ourselves enough to care for ourselves? Do we make things nice just because we want to live in a space that makes us happy or are we motivated to make things nice for someone else?

And why does this matter? It matters because loving ourselves well is the key to being able to love others well. It's the key to experiencing fulfillment and contentment in the here and now.

What have you been putting off? What flowerbeds or patio garden or house plants do you dream of having? If your house had to be sold next week, what would you do to make your space nicer for someone else?

Do it for yourself. Because it matters. Because you're worth it.