Little Farm

In my chair, in a snug corner of the living room, I watch a flawless fall day unfold out the window. My view – tidy rows of little colonial townhouses, fluffy clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The leaves blush, submitting to the cool air in a transformation to golden ends.

We’re here. We made it. Connecticut.

We walked on our land today, watching a mighty bulldozer command dirt this way and that. The shape of a long, tree-lined driveway taking form before our eyes.

When I first walked this land, I couldn’t see what Darren saw. I couldn’t imagine a house or farm or building dreams here in any way. Though I love big, old trees, the trees themselves made me claustrophobic. I wished for an open field, like the one I grew up on in Missouri.

But I’m beginning to see it now – the winding driveway to a little farmhouse, the yard spotted with towering maples, the flowers I’ll plant and the gardens we’ll grow. All of it begins to play out in my heart and imagination.

I don’t think I was ready to dream a new dream when we started down this road. I loved the house we were in. I loved our town and our kids growing up close to cousins. I wanted to stay; I knew we needed to go. So, I tore my heart away from that place one box at a time.

Every day since January 1^st has been chaos to that end. The packing, remodeling, house hunting, buying, and selling… I thought it’d never end. We skidded across the finish line on our bellies, moving the weekend before school started and getting sick immediately after.

It wasn’t until this week that I sat and caught my breath. I’d sit in a very certain spot in the living room to get a glimpse of the cornfields out beyond our townhouse…and marvel. Marvel at a God who allows the view of cornfields for a Midwest girl uprooted. Wonder at a God who allows us to build a house in the woods even when life demands we be so close to the city.

He sees us. And though he often says no, he gives so many good and merciful yeses too. He gives cornfields in the city and reminds me that he’s here in all the unlikely details that play out before us.

Three years ago, life began to unravel for us. It has taken all three years since then to see and believe things will ever piece back together again.

Earlier this week, I sat at a friends’ house drinking coffee and holding her new baby. We talked for almost two hours solid, and the time clicked by so quickly. I wasn’t sure I’d have friendship like that again. But God… he meets us in the raw, hurting spaces and grows good things in that same soil.

I don’t know what all God will grow in us here in Connecticut, but I finally know without question that we are where he wants us to be for right now.