I’m driving along one morning and my kids and I begin talking about having chickens and goats and how fun that would be. My kids were pretty excited about the thought. So I post, “my kids are begging me to live on a farm”. That was the beginning of a big giant hug from God straight from heaven for my soul…and while I can often be a fan of the choice to exaggerate. I assure you this is not one of those times.
I almost immediately get an instant message from a woman that I didn’t know except through an inquiry for a photo session with me. The timing had not worked out and we had exchanged a couple of emails regarding it, but that was about it. She let me know that she had a home, that her and her husband were looking for tenants. We could have chickens and goats there. We arranged to look at it in about three hours. I did what any normal person would do. I google earthed that sucker and then I did a drive by. I was giddy. G I D D Y.
On the way over to see the home, I was praying that I would love this home. We have lived in a LOT of homes and I am grateful for them all, but let’s be honest, some I just want to pet the walls every time I go inside and some not so much. For the last 7 years we had been in a rental that was pretty void of any character. The neighborhood was rapidly declining. After my kids had to be brought inside because of a hostage situation two blocks over, we had witnessed the staging for a swat team raid through our bedroom window, they had shut down our neighborhood because there were several burglars on the loose (on a Tuesday morning), and my son had been offered drugs in front of my home, I was really ready to leave. {Might I add this was all within a couple of month period}. I know longer felt safe there. As I was praying about this new home, I think I ended my prayer with something so profound like and Lord let there be slate.
* our home for seven years. great memories but we were happy to move on.
You know sometimes how you know you know and you know? I just knew this was going to be fabulous. Indeed when I pulled up I fell in love before walking in and every step of the way through the house got better and better. It is a gorgeous home… Then came the bathrooms. Two of them. Head to toe all dressed up in slate. Give. Me. A. Break.
I asked if I could bring my husband back right after work and we let them know of course we would love to move in. Not a police helicopter or drug dealer in sight either. Imagine. An established neighborhood with long time homeowners….and our landlords live on the property, next door. AND they own an alarm company. Go ahead burglars, break into the home with all the alarm trucks in the driveway. Safety everywhere. Just what my heart needed.
…and not just physically. To meet Ron and Joany is to love them…and fast and furiously we did. We had every comfort our hearts could want while living in this home. They provided repairs and upgrades for our comfort without a moment’s hesitation. They didn’t just rent a home to us. They invited us into their lives and their home and property. They shared with us and cared for us and it wasn’t long until my nine year old happily exclaimed that she had another grandma and papa. My heart smiled. Big.
*this house came with my own private photo studio in my backyard. Abandon railroad tracks and gorgeous fields.
Not too long after we moved in, a lot of things in our lives started turning upside-down and it became quickly apparent that God had provided a safe place in the midst of a storm. A beautiful home of peace, safety, refuge…and chickens. And the reassuring words of my now dear friend…”God has brought us into each other’s lives for such a time as this.”
For these precious people were fighting their own battles as well as Joany is fighting stage 4 breast cancer. The level of dignity and grace this woman and her husband possesses is nothing short of heavenly. Her son recently posted this on Facebook, I hope he doesn’t mind that I steal it, but it couldn’t describe Joany better….
Reading Proverbs 31 today. Love what my sister in law said about my mom “You are a flesh and blood Proverbs 31 Woman”.
“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come… Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”
We moved out shortly after Christmas as God called us to Missouri. It was ridiculously heartbreaking to leave that refuge. I shed so many tears over it, but I continually prayed that I would not hold too tightly and thank God so deeply for the gift He gave us in our time there.
Today Joany’s care has turned from treatment to comfort and her spirit is not broken and if her’s is not, darn it mine will not be either. I have been so touched reading all the outpouring from her friends and family on her Facebook page. For while I feel like I have known this family for years, the reality is last year at this time I didn’t know who they were. It has been beautiful to hear how many people adore them and see just how deeply. How precious are the ways of God, truly. How God can intertwine paths and hearts.
We only lived on our farm for a short 9 months. What I thought was a long term move was in deed something all together different. In my heart I wish that we had had many years there. I truly wanted to raise my kids in that home. With Ron and Joany, healthy, next door. That’s what I wanted. But the Lord gave us those nine months to heal and be safe and be loved in the best way possible because when it comes straight from Him it is just perfect and I doubt that Ron or Joany can fully understand how God used them, their love for us, and that home in our lives. It changed me.
I pray God can use me like that in someone’s life, for if so, it will be a life time very well spent. Here is a woman who didn’t know me from Adam and brought her best friends over to walk through and pray over the home before we moved in. I could go on and on…But I will tell you one of my very favorite things about Joany, she listens. She listens with a heart of gold and when you are talking she makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world. What a gift. The other favorite thing is her love for Jesus. It’s all over her.
I trust in God’s perfect timing and as it appears that Joany will be meeting our Savior before I will I think of my heartache, the heartache of her friends, family, and her husband and how great it will be. I am so very much comforted and happy in the thought that she will be in paradise. Truly. Free from any more pain and suffering and while she will no longer be a text away, she will be in my heart. For she has imprinted it for a lifetime.
I just needed to document this last year. It’s painful for all that it held. And the tears pour as I type, but they also pour because it is so stinkin’ beautiful how God works. To truly see the hands and feet of Jesus. I needed them, I needed that farm…I am so grateful.
Bless you dear friends.
and Joany…may you rest in perfect peace today, tomorrow, and always. I know you love words, and I search for the right ones, but you and your life have exceeded them in my book, my friend. You are so precious to me.
The Other Side
This isn’t death, it’s glory. It isn’t dark, it’s light.
It isn’t stumbling, groping, Or even faith, it’s sight!
This isn’t grief, it’s having My last tear wiped away.
It’s sunrise, it’s the morning Of my eternal day!
This isn’t even praying, It’s speaking face to face.
It’s listening, and it’s glimpsing The wonders of His Grace.
This is the end of pleading For strength to bear my pain
Not even pain’s dark memory Will ever live again.
How did I bear the earth life Before I came up higher,
Before my soul was granted It’s every deep desire.
Before I knew this rapture Of meeting face to face
That One who sought and saed me, And kept me by His Grace
Martha Snell Nicholson
