Define Home

This is our current home (which is still for sale if you are interested :)....

And this is the garage view of the carriage house that we are building a state away...

Why the move?  Here is the long story short:

After years of hard work and prayer, I ended up a single mama of two boys one year ago.  We had been in our current state/city for six years, but all of our family (both sides) lived a state away and we missed them terribly during this trying time.  Moving was not an option, however, because I was going to try to keep life as stable as possible for my two little blessings, who were 9 and 6 at the time of our separation and 10 and 7 at the time of our divorce.

God had different plans, though.  In January of this year, a job opened up near my hometown, fifteen minutes from all of our family.  Mind you, I was NOT looking for a job and the way this came about was through a series of events that were more than coincidental and worthy of their own post.  I was one of ten people interviewed out of many applicants and I was offered the job.  I was still hesitant to uproot my kids and had a lot of doubts that this would be for the best.  God kept nudging me, though, and showed me that this was not only the best financial decision, but best for us to be surrounded with family.  I was honestly so happy with our current life and my job that I continued to question how smart this was.  After many prayers, God made it clear that this was the direction we were to go and the blessings continued to come forth.  My boys and I are able to build on family land about 500 feet behind the house I grew up in and will be less that a mile away from both sets of their grandparents.  I love this for them and think it is a suitable second choice option to the family I had hoped for them to have growing up.

So that leads us to today...two weeks before our moving day.  I am now learning lessons in patience while I wait for our current house to sell and our future house to be built.  I have always seen my home as an expression of our family; a place to grow, laugh, cry, entertain and just live life.  I love to decorate, organize and gather people around my table.  And while my houses have never been castles, they are home just the same. 

More than anything, the past few years have made it very clear to me that home is wherever we are surrounded by those we love and those that love us back.  I pray that our new home is a blessing to our family and to everyone who enters its doors.  With that as my definition of home, square footage matters very little.

How do you define home?

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. ~Joshua 24:15