I felt like the decision was final but wanted to let God know so I finally prayed about it, "God if I am supposed to be living somewhere else then you are going to have to give me a sign. A big glowing sign because it looks like we are going to stay." No, I don't think God cares what my house looks like, but living in a small town instead of the suburbs would affect who my kids became. Who we became as a family. So I said a prayer up to God and I thought that was it: conversation over.
Well, within two weeks a house came up for sale with big porches on the top and bottom on three acres. And it was white. My dream house facade. I even carried around a little picture of my dream house in my wallet and this house looked just like it. Holy cow, I thought, there is my sign. I have never come across a house before that was as close to what I wanted as this house was (that was in my budget!). I decided to go look at it (just couldn't resist!), wanted to buy it, then . . . . someone else bought it first. My kids had already picked a tree for a tree house and I knew where I was going to put the Christmas tree. The pantry was an entire room ya'll. My mouth dropped on the floor when I saw it. I cried and cried and cried some more. I heard my husband tell his friend on the phone I looked like someone had died.
It wasn't just a house to me though, more of a life that I wanted. I dreamed of sitting on a big porch, breeze blowing, iced tea in hand, eating vegetables from the garden. I dreamed of a house that could sleep tons of people for Christmas. A smaller town for my boys to grow up in. A huge yard for them to run and play, chase fireflies in the summer, and learn about life while tending the garden. A big amazing kitchen to cook fabulous real food in. A huge pantry to keep all the glorious goodies I was going to can from the garden. When you get out of the suburbs and away from close fences and concrete the temperature drops ten degrees and the mosquitoes almost disappear. How much more enjoyable spending time outside would be! More porch sit-tin', less tele-vision. Amen to that.
I come from a family of vegetable gardeners. My grandfather was featured in his local newspaper years ago for his desire to get almost all of his groceries from his garden or from animals from his ranch. You know how old he is? NINETY SEVEN! And still going strong, still growing vegetables in his sprawling garden. That is the life I was yearning for. A yard big enough for us to grow our own food. A home that my kids could grow up in and come home to when they were grown.
I have drawn floor plans as a hobby since I was a little girl and they were always white houses with big double porches. On one of our first dates (I was a mere 19!) I remember telling my husband "someday I will live in a big white house with a porch across the top and a porch across the bottom." I can remember exactly where I was when I said it too. And those houses can be hard to find around here. Not to mention building a home is scary and frankly a pain in the neck. But after being in that house I couldn't drop it. The big glowing sign had lit a big fire inside of me. There was a neighborhood in the country that I loved and we had talked about for years, but we could never decide on a lot and actually buy it. A lot of talking but not so much doing. I think the whole idea of building a house freaked my husband and I out a little. Though we both wanted the same thing in the end, I didn't see how we were supposed to get there. But I felt the tug like we were supposed to be doing something. So I prayed again, "Lord, I feel like I saw the glowing sign, but I do not think my husband will ever pull the trigger. You are going to have to take it from here."
Within a few weeks his buddy called him and told him about this lot that was coming on the market in the country neighborhood we loved. We went and looked at it the next day and he was the one insisting we put in an offer. Several years of me trying to persuade him and all of a sudden I didn't have to. So long story short, we got the lot. I was giddier than a golden retriever with a tennis ball! The bank even set the closing date for our tenth anniversary. What a gift! The next couple of years we worked on the design and got our current house ready to sell. Then finally we were ready to start building this dream ourselves.
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| Clearing the trees out |
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| Here comes the dirt |
