A Place of Peace

This is the place where our journey to a peaceful home resides. House projects, personal/family goals and our plans to create a happy place to live.

The first time we drove up to our house, I instantly fell in love. I hadn’t even made it to the front door (which you can’t even see from the driveway) and I knew I wanted it. While we toured it, I walked out to the back patio, momentarily alone, and stood there, taking it all in. It was dusk, and the lights below were beginning to come into focus. I took a breath and as I did, I heard these words “This place will be a place of peace for you.” It startled me a little, but I knew that meant it was supposed to be our home.

That was eight months before we had even been approved for a home loan. We knew we loved the house, but we also knew that if it was meant to be, things would work out.

So, our house sat empty.

When at last everything was ready, we were thrilled to walk through the house again with the intention of putting an offer in, which we did that very day. Two days later we found out that the exact day we put an offer in, the sellers had received a second offer, for more.

We couldn’t believe our luck. This house had sat vacant for months before we first saw it, and for months after we saw it, and we happened to put an offer in the same weekend as someone else?!

We were devastated. Both Jesse and I had really believed that we were supposed to buy this house. However, we knew that if it hadn’t worked out, that there must be something specific that God had in mind instead.

So we kept looking. We put offers in on two other houses over several months, and even had one of our offers accepted, however, the owners were feuding about the details of the house as it was in a family trust, and so escrow didn’t open for almost two months. During that time (7 months after we put our offer in to the house we loved) we got a message from a good friend who lived next to “our house”, telling us that a realtor had just come by to say that the sale of the house had fallen through, and that it was back on the market. Our friend told the realtor about us, and she said that if we got in touch with her that day, she would talk to us about a price before she listed the house again. Hours later our offer was in, and the next night we found out that it had been accepted.

The home that we had waited for, for over a year, was ours. Our realtor (also a good friend) said when he called to tell us the good news “I don’t know if you believe in fate, but I think this house was meant to be yours.”

The crazy part… the buyers before us paid to have some re-piping for the plumbing put in, as well as fixing a couple other things, saving us hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Talk about a blessing! (for us, not them… obviously)

It is literally my dream home. An acre and a half of untapped potential, a small cozy home with a bunch of windows, surrounded by greenery and California plant life, with a view that makes you feel like you own the world.

It needs a TON of work. We are hundreds of thousands of dollars away from it being what I see in my head, and it’s been a serious adjustment to fit a family of seven into a 1600 sqft, three bedroom house, but I would do it all again if given the choice. My heart belongs here. My soul is connected to this place as if it had been built just for me (30 years before I was even born).

And when I need to feel peace, I walk out to the back patio and stand just where I did the first time we saw the house, and I instantly feel the peace I need. Theres something about looking out at the world around me that puts things into perspective. God knew exactly what I needed. He knew. This place would be a place of peace for me.

And in the constant unrelenting chaos of my life, I need a place to feel peace.

We all do.