The Beach Cottage {the important back story}

I realized the other day that I needed {wanted} to share the “back story”  behind our decision to buy the beach cottage.   I posted a year ago that we had decided to sell our house to free up resources to chase after the dreams that God was writing on our hearts.  At that point in time, I had already realized the dream that *I* had written for myself- law degree, good job, beautiful house full of custom details that mirrored the pictures I had torn out of magazines for years, filing away for my “dream future.”  I had been walking with the Lord-I knew Him personally and I loved Him.  Still, I was walking full-force ahead with my own road map and periodic glances behind my shoulder to see if He was still there and that I hadn’t been forgotten.  {He was.}  There was something missing.

 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  Matthew 7:13-14
Then, two years ago this coming September, Mr. Marvelous and I went to a wedding in South Haven, Michigan.  I was four months pregnant.

That weekend we were lifted out of the pattern of our everyday lives and given a new perspective.  Have you ever had a vacation like that?  We walked the pier aside Lake Michigan and talked like dreamers beneath the hot Indian Summer sun . . . we talked about what we wanted in this life and, more importantly, what we felt that God wanted of us.  We felt that we were being called toward something different.  Something more.  We talked and planned and prayed and walked and then the three of us charted a new course that day: husband, wife, and savior God.   

“Can we really do this?”  I dared to wonder.

One of the things that we planned that warm September day on the shore was for Mr. Marvelous to make a career change so that he could work exclusively from home and not spend 10 hours a day apart from baby and me.  For us, that seemed like the world’s way and not God’s plan for us (we had never stopped to question it before!).  We had no idea how we would accomplish this-none-but it felt so right and natural and we put our faith in God that if it was indeed His plan that doors would be opened.

The second thing we dreamed that day was to be able to spend half of our year down south, where my husband grew up and where his family still lives, and where it can be warm on the beach in the middle of winter and where our baby could grow up with grandparents to know and love him.  Where we could be reunited with our nephews and help shape their little lives with love beyond measure.  The second half of the year-the summer months-we would spend in Michigan, where I grew up, where again our baby could know and love his grandparents and where we could find a little fixer near the beach, where real estate is cheap and life is good and beach glass is abundant.  We would be together, as financially free as possible, and the dream was so sweet and so real I could almost reach out and taste it.

That weekend vacation ended, almost two years ago now, and we went back to Indiana.  Baby grew inside me and we waited and prayed.  Eight months passed and we decided to take things one step at a time and hand in hand, we stepped out of the boat and followed Him onto the water.

We put our house on the market in a horrible housing market.  He sent us a buyer in a matter of weeks.

We had no idea where we would move once we closed on our house, but God provided not only housing, but housing so affordable it allowed us the chance to save money like crazy people toward the purchase of that fixer cottage we were dreaming about . . .

Once we were settled temporarily in our rental house, a wonderful job opportunity came our way.

And now in a matter of weeks, we will move into the beach cottage, where Mr. Marvelous will work from home and we will spend the summer on the shore, with a mortgage payment smaller than a typical car payment, and it almost seems too good to possibly be real . . . although the world might not see the beauty in this cottage that is full of 1970s wood paneling and shag carpeting, but I am working on seeing beauty in God’s way, not the world’s way.  And let me tell you that I am going to make this cottage truly beautiful.

I am sure that this is but the first step on a new journey of thousands of miles to come.  And I surrender.  To a God whose love for me is greater than my love for myself and whose plans are exceedingly better than my own. I am not so bold {or foolish} to try to lead on my own anymore.  Even if I have to humble myself to sit down in the dust and wait for Him to reveal for me treasures hidden in secret places.

“I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”  Isaiah 45:3

It is absolutely worth the wait.