Homeless

What comes to mind when you hear the word homeless? Does it invoke an image or a feeling? I've heard the word homeless used more this week than ever before and it's got me thinking. 

When I wrote my last blog post I told you all that we were set to close on our house in less than two weeks. And then two weeks turned into two months. The waiting was more difficult than I could have anticipated. So many times I thought about sharing an update with you all but now I am glad I didn't. Because things don't always go as planned. That's life. Or so my mom would say as my teenage self rolled my eyes. 

I started out in faith. "We've got this! The Lord will provide!" And then the delay came. And it wasn't just once but multiple times I was told to "wait." I do not like to wait.  I like to DO. So many things have been brought to the surface. I'm pretty sure I learned about the refiner's fire in Sunday School growing up. I was told the metal worker ( I may be messing this up. Feel free to correct me) would heat the metal and any impurities would come to the surface to be scraped off. When the heat got turned up in my life, so to speak, some ugly things surfaced. If it hadn't been for my scheduled daily quiet time, I'm a creature of habit,  I would have completely gone off the rails. But in the early mornings with my Bible and coffee in hand my perspective always came back into focus. It was the evening meltdowns my patient husband endured that were tough. Can I just take a moment to thank God for giving me such a long suffering husband! 

Wait.... Wait... Now.

Raise your hand if you can relate. God gives us dreams and makes provision. But sometimes we are to simply be still and wait. If the song "To Those Who Wait" by Bethany Dillon were on vinyl I would have completely worn it out by now. The chorus says "Lord today you know what I need to do. But you can do more in my waiting than in my doing I can do." With lots of pretty Ooooooo's mixed in. Truth. I had to constantly remind myself of this truth because the waiting is hard. 

Onto what you came here for. We closed on our house this Tuesday. 

We are officially out of the house. I know you are wondering where we are living. It's what everyone keeps asking me. I talked about closing our house so much at work that when the day finally came my co-workers asked me repeatedly "so are you homeless!?" 

They are all very well meaning and sweet, knowing I was looking forward to the day. But that word surprised me. "Homeless?" I repeated "No, we aren't homeless" I would say. We sold our house but we have a home. 

I see homeless people everyday. I work in downtown Little Rock and they walk by the windows in front of the coffee shops I frequent. They are the ones I picture when I hear the word homeless. But are they truly homeless? I've been pondering this concept this week. What it means to have a home and the security we find in the familiar. 

Do you know what the majority of people around the globe call home? I've rocked a baby on a straw mat inside a hut with a dirt floor in Africa. Where the orphan children made jump ropes out of vines and entertained themselves for hours. I've eaten dinner at a little wooden table in a similar style open hut house in Peru. All while the owners sat on the dirt floor. What an honor. I've eaten the tiniest piece of birthday cake made by a generous missionary's wife in Brazil for HER birthday because she shared with the village. I've experienced hospitality in foreign places that made them feel less so because of the people there. 

How's that for some perspective? 

“Behold me, here I am; thy little handmaiden Acceptance-with-Joy and all that is in my heart is thine.”
― Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places

I took the picture of the little yellow flower above. As the missionaries prepared my team's dinner that night at the YWAM base in Colombia I found her smiling up at me surrounded by concrete. And the quote above came to mind as I had been reading "Hinds' Feet on High Places" on the long boat rides up and down the Amazon River that week. 

I'm still thinking on this but for now, to me...home is where I am surrounded by loving people. Sharing life together. What is home to you?

Simply Us

We are Donnie and Tori.  We've been married for 14 years and counting.  Over the years we have begun the search for simplicity.  I didn't realize just how much it had permeated our lives until recently.  We are on a whirlwind of a journey and thought we'd use this blog as an online journal to look back on what the Lord has done and an opportunity to share our story with friends and family.  You can expect no fluff and little filter.  This is Simply Us.

Overview:  In 2005 Donnie and I began our relationship on the 3 acres of land he had lived on prior to us.  Luke and I moved in with he and Jacob.  At that time he had a nice mobile home and a large shop on the lot.  There was plenty of room for our boys to roam. Some of my fondest memories are the family kickball games we played out back, the large garden that I could never keep up with, and the chicken co-op we shared.  It was where we raised our boys and we loved the land, but at night my mind would race with worst case scenarios of what I would do if something were to ever happen to Donnie.  (Not much has changed there.)  Financially we were concerned that the mobile home would depreciate and was not a good investment.  We began talking of buying an older home and updating it.

Talks went on for years until one day when Donnie declared it was time to sell!  We stuck a for sale by owner sign up by the road and began to pray.  We prayed that God would send us a buyer.  I remember praying and looking out the window only to see our sign fallen over.  I would get so frustrated being sure that no buyer would come if the sign wouldn't even stay up right!  I don't recall how long we waited but I do remember the day the gentleman came to our home to look.  He said he would be back with his family.  They came again.  They were the first ones to look.  That was sometime in December of 2013.  He offered us cash and we handled it all ourselves.  God had answered our prayers.

Next step for us was to find a home we could update and sell.  We didn't have a lot of ideas of what that would look like.  Our main goal was to pay off old debt and start fresh.  We bought our home in Benton January of 2014.  We spent 3 months living with my parents and all of our extra time working on the house.  We stripped the house of all carpet, everything got a fresh coat of paint, and many other things too much to tell here.  The house looked completely different and we loved it.  

Our lives have been completely changed by this move.  We gained a new community, we have wonderful neighbors who care for each other, we have welcomed girls from all over the world into our home and lives, and Luke found his passion in BMX at the local skate park.  Not to mention the Sunday family lunches that have been a standard for the last couple of years.  Our hearts are full.  

Even though we have been very happy and blessed in our home here in Benton we have always longed for more land and we knew when we bought this home that we wouldn't be here forever.  It was a financial move ultimately and we would need to sell in order to reap the reward.  If you know me you know that I'm a dreamer.  I can come up with all sorts of ideas and plans.  When Donnie hears me say "I've been thinking..."  he always says "you have?" and we both chuckle.  We both know where that can lead.

Now that you're all up to date I'll get to what's been going on lately.  I can't remember when I started to pray for the Lord to send someone to buy our home in His timing. If I had to guess it's been about a year off and on when I would think about it.  Months ago we had some friends over and they mentioned loving our home.  Donnie jokingly told them that it was for sale.  Fast forward to today and those friends are buying our home.  We are set to close September 6th, less than two weeks from the writing of this blog. 

Stay tuned...