The last time I wrote, I shared the hymn, ‘In the Garden’, as I lightly touched on a current season of life where I seem mostly alone with my Heavenly Father.  If you like, you can read it here – Lessons in the Garden.

I’ve decided that I am going to continue lightly touching on various lessons I am reluctantly embracing as I sojourn on this portion of the journey.  It is a difficult journey at present, but I find this makes the lessons I am learning even more poignant and valuable.

An ongoing lesson of late has been —

 Finding courage TO change and finding freedom IN change.

When I married, 22 years ago, I moved into a picturesque, yet unfinished, log cabin that my husband had started to build prior to meeting me.  It sat atop of a small mountain at the end of a mile long, rugged dirt lane.  It was a small cabin, set into that mountainside, and designed for the life he intended to live alone.  Instead, he ended up marrying me.  Even so, it was definitely his house and even though we lived there from 1996 to November of 2007, it never truly seemed as though I belonged.  These were hard years in many ways and my overall growth became stunted.  I lived in fear and I generally lacked the courage, conviction, and ability one needs to grow and mature.  Then my babies began to arrive, autism hit like a non-stop hurricane, and the isolation, loneliness, lack of sleep, and constant demands almost completely destroyed my sanity.

After a few years of praying  and timidly advocating for a move to a different home that would be more suitable for my growing family — especially considering the added demands and needs the diagnosis of autism brought — the Lord finally opened the door to the house we have now.

Oh, it is a problem house for sure.  It seems to be falling apart around me and currently I have at least two destroyed ceilings that I don’t think will ever get fixed.  It is an old farm house that had been added onto over the years and the last update was likely in the 1960’s which means, the counter tops are orange, all the walls were ‘updated’ with paneling (and then covered with all different colors of paint), and the ceilings were dropped and covered in cardboard-like tiles (most of which are ruined and sagging).

But I love it.  I love the four beautiful acres that my home sits on and the breath-taking view that surrounds it.  I love that I can see the road and even though I often still feel a sense of isolation due to some life circumstances, I can at least look outside and see life happening.  People can actually ‘just stop by for a minute’ without subjecting their vehicle to the beating of that old dirt lane and I am just minutes from family and the nearby town.

This is the home that I have raised my children in for the last 11 years and this is the home that allows me just enough safety to grow into a new place of Christ-centered identity and emerging freedom.

It is a house that is evolving and changing even as I mature and change and it is becoming a home that more reflects the woman I am … not the woman I once tried to project myself to be.

So what does that mean currently?  Well, it means my home is not perfect nor beautifully staged — neither am I.  It currently is in a state of flux and in desperate need of repair — just as I am.  It means it is in a season of transition, as also am I.

The majority of the downstairs features a relatively open floor plan in the style of a typical old house with numerous add-ons over the years.  One room flows into another and then another until you reach the large, sunken living room.  The only exception to this flow of rooms is the one just off the kitchen — it has always been designated as the dining room.  The dining room has always been my most favorite room in the entire house.  It gives off cozy vibes and is generally the warmest room during the cold winter months when the rest of the house is freezing from the winds blowing through the drafty windows.  It is a peaceful spot as it seems its own sanctuary set apart from the other rooms and it is the room that beckons me to enter most often.  I have long desired to change it from a dining room into more of a library/office and create my own little space — a designated spot of my own to work out of or retreat into as needed.

I would share my desire of making this change from time to time but I always faced considerable resistance.  It is sufficient to say, I have more than one person in this house who strongly resists any sort of change.  There are more than enough battles to fight in any given day that I simply never had it in me to fight this one.  So for years I’ve been telling myself that I would create the space I’ve longed for … “someday.”

They say ‘Necessity is the the mother of invention’ and that may be so, but I believe desperation tends to be the mother of change.

Desperation has driven me to a place where I need to take action.  Positive, moving forward action.

So a couple of weeks ago when I began to feel the nudge over and over to switch two rooms around and set the dining room up in a different area of the house so I could create the space I’ve longed for within my favorite room, I understood that I needed to heed the promptings from above.

“Someday” is now.

God provided the courage I needed to initiate a change within my home that was not warmly welcomed by some in the household.  In the process, I had to allow Him to make a change in the way that I think and perceive.  I had to accept and affirm that:

1- My time, work, and many varied responsibilities have value even if no one validates them, and
2- My needs and the things I long for are important to God, even if no one else sees.

With this new courage and change of perspective that the Lord is graciously building in me, I am in the slow process of transitioning spaces and creating an environment within my home that will reflect who God is transforming me to be.

And in this state of transition and change, I am discovering a sense of freedom even in the midst of what has been a dark season.

The freedom to simply be who I am.