Home!

Note to the weary reader: This will (hopefully) be my last post about our house and the trees that fell and the ensuing construction...

The very first time we ever saw our house was on a rainy, gray and dreary day. We were driving around with our realtor to go check out some promising listings in our price range and started with this house that we didn’t like. The thing about this house was that it matched the day. What I mean to say is, it looked droopy. The color of the house was a cold, blue/gray that perfectly matched the grumpy sky above. The ground was mushy from the constant rain and the house just seemed to sigh... like Eeyore from “Winnie the Pooh.” We pulled up, stopped the car and sighed along with the house, thinking, “So this is our price range. Okay.”

Then we went inside and were blown away... it was beautiful. Almost everything about this house had been updated or redone with really good taste. It was open, spacious and had lots of natural light, which was sort of a deal-breaker for us. We saw a few more houses that day, but couldn’t stop thinking about that very first one we saw... the Eeyore house. Long story short, we got it. We prayed a ton and got that house! We thankfully and joyously moved in and have loved it ever since. Now, we knew the house wasn’t perfect... I mean, home ownership is one of those things that never stops, as in there’s always something else to do. We knew this house was going to need a new roof at some point, the gutters were not so great, it wasn’t very energy efficient, and we wanted to do lots of painting. Our thinking was that we would try to paint a room at a time over the course of years as we could afford to do it, and hopefully save up for gutters, roof and exterior paint. The only problem being... no savings. Honestly, it looked like some of our ideas and dreams for this house were impossible.

Then two trees fell on the house... a mighty wind blew those trunks out of the ground and onto the house, crushing the roof and one of the rooms. It has been a confusing and difficult time with moving a bunch and dealing with tons of different people and companies, but now it’s all finished and we move back home today!! Not only that, but check this out: without saving up any money, we are moving back into the house we love except that now it has a brand new roof, brand new insulation, brand new gutters, a brand new bonus room in every way and a custom paint job on every square inch of the house, inside and out! WHAT!? Professionals have been working around the clock for weeks to make our home such an awesome place to come home to. After a short, but difficult month and a half of confusion, frustration and inconvenience, we are going home... and to an even better home than we could have hoped for.

This week I was reading 1 Thessalonians 4 where Paul says, “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

Our lives can be difficult and confusing and full of struggles and hardship, but hey, they’re also going to be pretty short! And then, we get to go home. Whatever we have to endure while we’re here, it’s only for a little while and then we get to go home... home to a place that is more amazing than we could ever imagine where we’ll get to be with Jesus always... mmm. Can’t wait till that day!