The House The Lord Built

For four years we've made a townhouse in NOVA into our home. Since moving in we've almost doubled in size as a family. This house has been a huge blessing to us and met every single one of our needs. God truly answered every prayer we had when He lead us here. But we knew this was not our forever home and about a year ago we started looking. 

Easier said than done. Up here it's not about space, it's about convenience and you pay a hefty price for it. A family of seven needs space and some practical use of square footage, not to mention some kind of outdoor yard for fast growing kids with a ton of energy. We'd either find a house with bedrooms and no yard, or find a yard with two of the bedrooms in a basement and one upstairs. 

We saw prices that made our heart stop and prices that reflected a pit that needed razing. After a year of looking and praying we started to wonder if being home owners was really what we were supposed to do. But just when we were almost ready to surrender, our home found us. Well, really God lead us right to it. The second we saw that land, a peace like no other flooded us and for the first time in our entire married lives we felt home. 

The road to starting the build process has been very much so a growing experience in faith, trust, and utter dependence on God and His perfect plan. At one point we had to completely let go of this house and walk away before God opened the door back up in a better way than we ever could have imagined! 

We've picked cabinet colors, shower tiles, carpet, and hard wood floors. We've chosen outlet locations, front door colors, and overhead lighting placement. We've made hundreds of little choices I never thought about before but we've had a blast doing it. Even with all the warnings from well meaning individuals of how this would cause disagreements and stress between Matt and I with all the decisions to make, we were a complete team and chose everything together without argument and I think we'd both say this has made us stronger and more in love than ever as we "build our house" together. 

Our lives on ten acres of pure peaceful beauty are going to be an adventure we cannot wait to begin. I'll be blogging through the entire way so one day we can look back on the incredible beginning of the "house the Lord built." 

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it.

Psalm 127:1