52 Week Blessing Challenge – 2

What a blessing to have the house we have. It’s not impressive, not even that pretty. But we own it (at least the part that isn’t mortgaged), and we are able to make our payments.

The year we purchased it and moved in I thought I had died and gone to heaven. You see we had been living in a suburb and were longing for more of a rural place to call home. I remember that I could not even hear the birds singing where we used to live. Now each morning as the sun comes up the birds sing their praises to the Lord.

(nature in our pasture)

We have pasture area on our property and one thing I wanted most in the world (at that time) was farm animals, sheep mostly. So through these last 13 years we’ve had chickens, sheep, a cow, more sheep, rabbits, more sheep, and horses. Can you tell I like sheep? So do dogs.

Twice our sheep were torn up by dogs. I had no idea that dogs could or would get into our pasture. We live rural and there ARE dogs running around. Of course there are also coyotes I’ve seen walking through the yard, but it is the domesticated dogs that have done the damage.

A few years ago I gave my sheep to my sister, who also likes farm animals. We are both spinners and weavers, and between her and I we have enough wool to weave (knit, crochet) a closet full of clothing.

The inside of our home is a little less glamorous. It’s a 1940’s farmhouse that someone tried to modernize in the 1980’s. When we first moved in we saw a number of things that hadn’t been finished, or had been put together in a haphazard way. We were willing to overlook those things because we were now moving to the country!

We’ve seen abused and wounded children healed in our home. We’ve seen children grow, and we’ve seen children go. I would never trade those years of being a foster parent for anything. And out of the blessing of having this house, we have seen our family grow with the addition of our two daughter’s, Emily and Grace. There’s been a whole lot of love under this roof and how blessed I am to have been here for it all!