continued...... we got to town early and decided to run by the house. as we drove down the street, i was in shock. this house was not the house i remembered. it looked a tad bit familiar, but not at all like the house i lived in.
i asked chuck to slow down so i could take it all in. then i asked if we could pull up into the driveway and just let me look. he said yes. we pulled up and a man walked from the barn to the house. he stopped and looked at us...hehe....you know that feeling when someone drives up to your house and you're like 'who is THAT and what do they want?'....well he had that look.
i introduced myself by my maiden name. his eyebrows rose up. i said 'i used to live here'...he said 'i know you did'....i told him about my friend messaging me and then he asked if i would like to go in and see the house.
of course i said YES!
we walk in, and of course i recognize the house, but it is different. it has been taken care of. Rick, the owner of the house, tells me of what he has done. as we walk through, i am able to recount the way things were, and what was here and what went there, etc.....he agreed with me and corrected me when i got mixed up...but that only happened once, maybe? i remembered with clarity the way the house WAS....
but this was a different house. it has the same shell....rick told me they gutted the thing. kept what they wanted and needed to, but for the most part, it was a brand. new. house.
rick did tell me that when they first walked through it, he noticed some things that looked wrong...he said he looked at his wife and said 'child abuse has happened in this house'...well, that shook me to the core as you can imagine....and I told him-yes. It did.
i walked room to room like i did 19 years ago. some parts held a bit of a grasp on me, but it was like walking in a completely different place.
rick also told me of how they took the house off the foundation it was on and moved it 6 feet to prepare a solid foundation to replace the old one.....wow....6 feet and then back.
the love this family has for this house. the care they took in re-doing it. the detail they paid attention to. it was incredible.
so. so beautiful was this house.
we chatted, and then before things became awkward ;) we left.
they did tell us they had lived in the barn while building and are planning on opening a bed and breakfast in the barn after the 1st of the year.
we got in the car, drove off and i asked chuck if he would drive around the block and let me look at it one more time. and again, he said yes.....as we drove up, i started shooting pictures....this is one of the pictures i got....
on to the game we go.
i am still in shock over what i have seen and can not completely comprehend it. i am silent as i absorb it all. but on to the game we go :)
a friend from high school got us some tickets and we were finding our seats when another friend came up. she asked how our day had been and i begin by showing her this picture.
she said, 'that's the house that's in the football program'....i was puzzled and she insisted it was. she said, 'isn't it so beautiful??'...my response was, 'yes, it is, but you should see the inside!...it is SO incredible.'
god spoke. he said, 'that's what i say about you'.
i just wept.
its been such a hard road. and *I* know what i have been through and what *I* have done. i know the ugly, the hard, the abuse, the old junk. but he took me.... he took me off the foundation i had grown up on. the shaky foundation. and he moved me onto a firm foundation. he basically gutted me, LOL....and restored the inside of me...kept what he wanted to for future use and created something so much better.
i could go on and on about the similarities, comparisons and pictures he gave me that night and he is still doing.
maybe i will continue to share as it develops.
the last thing: he told me: just as anyone driving by now would not know what happened in that house, people who know you now don't know who you used to be. you keep trying to be the old house, when i made you brand new. let the old die. begin living in the new house i built for you.
i do know that i am hoping to be one of the 1st to stay in the bed and breakfast. i have asked them for that :)
i know there is deeper healing for me as i go and stay....and let god love on me and heal some of those old wounds.
if you'd like to see more of the house, visit this blog. leave a comment, if you wish. i know the new owners would love to hear what others are seeing and saying!! its http://horse-apple-hill.blogspot.com
what happens when something changes the course of your life? God meets you there :) I have been blessed beyond measure to be able to share a small piece of the beginning of my life, my story on Mary DeMuth's blog section call thin place. you can read about my {one on my many} thin place 
2 Kings 5:1-3
Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. 2 Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. 3 She said to her mistress, "If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."
ok..so i did not take this picture, but i wanted to write about a dream i had and this is the closest thing i could find to communicate the image i have about it.
i had a dream a while back...in this dream i was a servant girl living in a mud hut...i was dirty, worn and tired. i was fighting fire breathing dragons that were attacking me and my hut. i was trapped in my little hut with no way out. i was alone. i was crying out for help, and what i got was things being thrown at me....books, tapes, seminars, conferences...(you get the idea?)...i could not use them for the job at hand...they were tools but not the right ones for this job. as i was beating a dragon away, i got my foot in the door and could only see out that much. what i saw was a castle. it was sitting up on a hill far away...but as i saw it, i KNEW that was where i belonged....not in the mud hut. and in the foreground was a knight...riding a white horse. HE was who was going to take me to my castle. i realized then that i was a princess, not a servant girl and my home was a castle, not a mud hut and that this MAN was going to fight for me....and HE came and fought my dragons for me so that i could leave the place i was trapped and live where i belonged.
Isaiah 30:15 in quietness and rest is your salvation.....
Our family recently went on a beach vacation. Along with the talks of watching out for sharks and jelly fish were the constant instructions and reminders of what to do if you get caught in a rip tide. Not a pleasant thought, but a necessary thing to do. We went over and over the fact that you may feel like you are drowning and you may feel the need to swim as hard as you can, in actuality, those things are not true and could bring further danger. I told the kids how to lay back and let the current take them out of the ripe tide and that the best thing to do is to relax and go with the waves until they were out of it and they could swim easily back to shore. Thankfully, we never have encountered a rip tide.
have you ever tried to be still? it is the ONLY way i can hear god. one of my favorite scriptures is about how god is not in the earthquake and he is not in the fire, but he is in the gentle whisper. I LOVE that....i expect god to speak loudly--and sometimes he does--but mostly, he speaks when i get still and press into him in my heart. we are on a family vacation right now and i am reminded of how much planning for and taking a vacation is like purposing to have time with him....we plan far ahead so that we have saved enough money, we have to make reservations far ahead so that we get a place large enough (that we can afford) to house all of us. I plan the food, shop, prepare the food, make sure everyone had a swimsuit--YIKES! Then there is the packing, loading and driving...making sure everyone has enough to keep them occupied for the 13+ hour trip to the gulf. once here, it is unpacking, cooking, keeping up with the laundry, keeping the kids safe, etc....so...if i allow this to consume me, I never get to be still and relax. it takes so much work for us to go on vacation--just as it takes work for me to have time to be still...i have to prepare...me, my family, the day...so many things can pull on me to keep me from it....the enemy knows how to attack in this area (as I am sure he knows your weak spots) :)....i know that when i have purposed to do this....take the time to prepare to have some quiet, still time with HIM, then HE is faithful to meet me....oh, he meets me in the chaos, too...but this is where he wants me....still and quiet...in my heart...when everything else is swirling around me...it just takes work...