One day, God willing, we will move away from this home. As challenging and frustrating as this house has been the past 3 years, I have already unexpectedly planted my roots deep here.

This house has become my refuge. There is safety and freedom here to be my truly authentic and unapologetic self. Within these 4 walls, the world outside is hushed, drowned out by the worship music drifting from the kitchen and the tiny giggles down the hall. This little yellow house offers abundant space to breathe and rest and connect deeper with the people I love most.

This house has become a carefully curated museum. There are colorful art projects and collections of toys, evidence of childhood imagination. Photos and decorations that commemorate the day a beautiful marriage was conceieved. Furniture, well loved and handed down from our families, with decades of stories within every scratch and scuff. Books on every topic line the shelves, lie stacked on the table and peek out from underneath the blanket on the couch.

This house has become my very favorite classroom, with so many lessons tucked inside the very walls that hold it together. Life is full of opportunities to learn and grow; it is up to us to seek and apply them. Every single day I am learning:

• How to garden.
• How to cook and bake from scratch.
• How to manage our finances.
• How to raise/parent 3 very different kids.
• How to nurture and deepen my marriage.
• How to trust God’s goodness.
• How to pray big, bold prayers.
• How to dig my own scriptural well where Living Water lies in wait for me.
• Who God says I am and believing it.
• Making peace with the girl I was and learning to love the woman I am becoming.
• How to love others well.
• To be the kind of friend I want to have.
• To find my own voice.
• To be content.

This home is not our first, and probably won’t be our last. But this home will always hold a special, almost sacred place in my heart. This home is where I meet with Jesus, nurture my children and deepen my marriage. This home is where I’m learning who I am and who God made me to be.

This will forever be the home that built me.