- I thought of the 22 year old city girl, with very limited life skills and newly married, who had hardly even been on any type of farm ever, that now lived out in the middle of nowhere as a {bona fide} homesteader.
- That young girl who cried the whole first week {read: years} she moved there and didn't think she could make it another week...and then she made it through another one, then another one, and many more after that....
- I thought of the first long summer; guys bailing hay and the long days. A young girl, waiting on the homestead, not knowing the standard protocol was that she should be the 'snack lady.'
- I thought of the culture shock.
- I thought of the blood, sweat, and tears two young kids encountered to establish oneness in marriage.
- I thought of the teacher who applied for every job under the sun and never got hired, partly because she wasn't somehow related or known by the one hiring or didn't coach football. {Though was desperate enough, at times, to contemplate it}
- I thought of the isolation. Isolation that pushed a young wife to read, cook, write, explore, run, and be creative.
- I thought of the girl who had to learn that life is more than a pretty house to show off.
- I thought of the wife whose husband thought it was a great {and cost effective} idea to forgo replacing a furnace and put in a wood burning stove for heat. And how she prayed each winter they wouldn't get the 'Black lung.'
- I thought of the new young mother, taking home her preemie son, thankful he is alive, but scared and unsure as she walks into a cold, empty house, cords connected all over her baby, medicine upon medicine to administer to her little one, and a farm that still needed her husband.
- I thought of the mom who finds she is expecting another sweet babe, 5 months after that.
- This same mom who then welcomes a 3rd little one, 23 months after that, and crashes under the weight of 3 under 3 in their tiny house.
- Thought of the mom who figured out a way to squeeze 3 little ones, their clothes, gear, and toys in one tiny room.
- I thought of the mom who looses her 4th little one in the middle of winter. The hardest time of year for her on the homestead.
- And the mom who then welcomes her daughter. And finds the strength to fight, and battle back.
- I thought of the God, who used all this and more, for His glory, to teach a young girl that He, HE alone is in fact enough. Teaching her the joy in death to self. A God who loved her enough to destroy her and make her utterly dependent on Him....daily. Though slightly less than 100 miles from where she grew up, on an isolated farm, He knew that would be enough to sanctify. To build.
By the grace, I survived. We survived. And now we thrive. By the grace of God....
I'm ready to let the house go....
