Sunday afternoon

 
Sweetpea and Buck (Ages 15 & 12) are in the kitchen whipping up a double-batch of choco-chip cookies — for which I'm sure I'll need to make a "milk run", later this afternoon.  Munchkin and Puff (10 & 5) are making crafts on the coffee table — looks like some get well cards for Mama, who's napping after a nasty tangle with the stomach flu this morning, during our church fellowship.  Cass-a-frass (2) is down for a nap, my "Yellowjackets Fav's" playlist is helping me to tune them all out, and I think I'm finally free to put electronic pen to ink, so to speak.

Where to begin?

I ache to begin building a house in a wide-open space.

Not some 4,000 sq-ft showpiece in a ski-resort town, that will appreciate in value until the point where I can sell it off and make a killer profit and then go buy an even bigger house or two, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.  No.  That paradigm never existed for me, and I believe that ship has long-since sailed for many other people as well.

The house I envision — this divine vision, placed in my head by God Himself, I'm convinced — is small, and is glaringly devoid of some of the many ecoutrements so common to "city" life.  It doesn't have a dishwasher, nor a 60" flatscreen, nor an electrical outlet on every single wall... but it does have a root cellar.  It does not have another house placed 4 paces away from it, nor a postage stamp-sized excuse of a "backyard"... it has a barn and a chicken coop.  It uses the earth surrounding it for insulation, staying warm in the winter, cool in the summer.  It is made from salvaged or reclaimed materials, but is classy and warm nonetheless.  Now I have it on trustworthy authority that such a house doesn't have to cost an arm-and-a-leg to build.  Lately, it seems the Lord has been having our family's path crossing with that of several other families who have varied experience in these areas of life, learning and building that we are pursuing.  I find this very encouraging, and this encouragement is vital to our journey...

...'Cause let me tell you, the details surrounding our available tangible resources can be quite discouraging at times. (I briefly considered listing some details here, but decided against it.  Email me if you're curious)

However, none of these things (nor the many other "faith-foes" that I do mental battle with every day) can trump the fact that God is watching out for us, providing for our every need and surprising us in ways we could never invent.  Just this morning, we got in our car to go home from our church fellowship, someone had placed an envelope full of dollar bills on our console — anonymously, of course.  (Thank you, Lord!  Please bless the people who sent it!)  During the writing of this post, I made my first sale on Ebay.  I was able to salvage and cash in some building materials last week.  And dig this — I have a good friend in Washington who seems to have made it his own personal mission to send me more medical and preparedness supplies than you can shake a walking-stick at.  For Pete's sake, I've lost count of the number of times I've had my countenance lifted by his "surprise packages" in the mail!

So, what I'm finding is, that trusting in the supernatural provision of Heavenly Father is a whole lot more adventurous and exciting than just having everything all figured out in my own head.  We sure could use a lot of prayer for wisdom, direction and providential favor.  We are going to be looking into acquiring land to build on, but doing our best to adhere to the Lord's way of going about it, and NOT getting locked into a 30-year mortgage.  Also, if you are interested, our oldest daughter has begun blogging as well.  You can read her posts at IShunpike.blogspot.com.

May the Lord bless you in your going out and your coming in... Psalm 1.