My wife and I recently made the decision to list our home on the market. We have lived in this home for almost 5 years, but with her being pregnant with their second child, we have begun to think more about the investment we are making in our children. It wasn’t that long ago when I assumed the decisions that we had made the purchase this particular home what’s something of an anchor in my life. It seemed as though we had made a decision that could act as a sort of bedrock for the development of our family.

I don’t know that I ever assumed that we would live here for the rest of our lives, but I did believe that we would live here as long as I worked at my current church. However, it seems as though the Lord has brought us to realize a different hierarchy of priorities.

The most important factor in making this decision was the number of hours my wife and I had to spend earning money to pay for our home, and the fact that we were trading the hours at work with ours at home with one another. At a certain point, the time you spend with your children become infinitely more valuable than the scenery present at the time. For several months, Krystle and I found ourselves coming home exhausted, with barely enough energy to engage in some conversation before we went to sleep.

We simply couldn’t continue neglecting one another for the sake of a house.

I hope that the purchase of our next home Will be marked with as much excitement as our first, without producing the kind of dread that we experienced every day as we attempted to pay for it. I know that the decision to downsize a home sometimes functions against the grain of our society, but if it offers us the ability to invest in our children it is a trade that I would make a thousand times over.