Today we look at the house again to decide if we want to move forward.

Or really to know for sure that God is moving in this direction. Because neither one of us is willing to  move if He isn’t in it. No sirree. Not at all.

This isn’t our first rodeo. Nor our first time living outside of town. Nor our first time living quite a ways from the nearest large town.

Mr. FullCup grew up living large in the country.  He was a pig farmer extraordinaire.

In 1996, (good night Louise! Has it already been almost 20 years?), we moved from our small town to living outside of a smaller town. Honestly people, on a good Sunday, when someone was hosting a family reunion at the community center there was 50 people in the town. The town boasted a gas station, grain elevator, bank and post office. Need a loaf of bread? A gallon of milk? You’ve got at least a 15 mile jaunt. The gas station wasn’t one of those new-fangled convenience store ones, but it was one you could find all the men hanging out, playing checkers ones.

The bank would call you if your account was in danger of being overdrawn, and they would hold checks until you could get there with another deposit.

You had to plan ahead in this town. No rushing out with your spaghetti on the stove because you forgot you were out of canned tomatoes.

The largest town, that was close was about 30-40 miles away.

And the speed limits weren’t 75 either.

We had one car, like we do now. Mr. FullCup worked in that large town. Many a morning I would get up, go with him to work, so I could have the car for shopping or whatever I had need of that day.

It was great.

It was hard.

I’m not going to lie, as a young adult with a yen for people, it was difficult for me. Mr. FullCup eventually changed jobs and worked at the grain elevator in town. I would walk the 2 miles into just to see people. Before he switched I would go with him so I could have the car just so I could get some human interaction. On a good day, I would see the mailman’s arm as he put mail in the box. In a 5-mile stretch of our road, we were the only house.

It was lonely.

I was lonelier.

Twenty years can change a person. Maturity changes one. A heart full of Jesus and a great desire to do what pleases Him changes you radically.

When I look back on my life, living in the country was never something I wanted to do. No thank you. I had plans to winter in San Diego and summer in New York City. The bigger the city, the more I wanted to live there.  I had no use for country life. I hated walking through the animals during the county fair. They were big, scary and smelled bad.

It wasn’t for this girl.

Now I have a yearning to be able to see the sun rise and set.  My neighbors are crowding in around me.

Will it be easy?

No.

Will I love it?

I sure hope so. But I know myself well enough to know there will be days I’ll hate it. I’ll wonder why on earth we ever did this darn fool thing.

As you can see, I have my eyes wide open.