Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

For years, I’ve had this gnawing ‘not-so-tiny’ lie in the back of my mind scolding me for my excessive, obnoxious love of nature and the desire to have a farm because that love sorely lacked ‘real spiritual depth’. I had a pastor tell me once that living in the country was NOT where God wanted people. “People are in the city, so you should live in the city, not the country.” Sadly, I believed him.

Fear of man is ALWAYS A TRAP.

That lie welcomed a host of other lies that condemned my longings as vain, selfish and carnal.

But my love for country living hasn’t gone away. It’s ‘plagued’ me probably as long as the day we left the 101 acre farm in Alden, NY. I’ve dreamed about it, prayed for it, cried over it, worked through jealousy several times over friends and family that had/have property. But the dream and desire to experience God in nature has never once waned, yet the lies have only created weights that, somehow, I am ‘missing something in my calling to love and serve him.’

We did live on three acres when we moved to TX in 2006. I dearly loved living and breathing in the solitude, pleasure and delight of God, away from the noise and busyness of the city. That place was a solace from the challenges we were facing at the time.

I mourned the day we had to leave, headed back to the city.

Well, a lot has happened over the course of the next ten years of our life. We lived with some wonderful friends for two months until Jef found a job and we moved into a house, right smack dab in the hood. The garage on the property had bullet holes from a fatal shooting! I didn’t know that until after we’d moved in.

But God.

He knows what makes my heart sing. The large yard had a tree house for the twins and a window seat in the dining room! Yes, the little pleasures. The boys would spend hours in that tree house and designed a pulley to haul lunches and Legos up there.

Even though I would sometimes hear gunshots, we were always safe. I tried a garden there. It was a flop. And my heart still yearned for beauty and country living.

Circumstances changed once again and we embraced the opportunity of caring for my parents, which meant we needed to move into a larger home. But the country was NOT in the picture because my mother needed to go to dialysis three times a week and we needed a place nearby.

After searching and searching, I gave up and let God, who knows all things, direct my steps and I stopped frantically worrying! God not only lead me to a home with three very large picture windows for my mom to see everything, but a very large backyard for twin boys to have bee bee gun fights and a kind landlord who let me do whatever I wanted, including a garden. My first attempt at a garden was a flop…again. But I am not a quitter!

After three years and a few months, my mother passed away in her sleep. My father, devastated, decided to go back to NY and we thought it may be time to move. It was at that juncture that our landlord decided to sell the house. After much prayer, conversation and finding out that our son and his wife, who live around the corner, were expecting a baby, we stayed and bought the home!

That was five years ago!

The twins moved out almost two years ago and there we were, empty nesters, contemplating a country home. Our friends, church and Jef’s job were all out in the country.

But God!

I still want to pinch myself because I see how much I’ve changed. He has an eternal plan for us being right here…in the city~! We now house people from all over the world. It’s beyond what I could have ever dreamed of doing.

I have learned to be content with the life I have, the home I live in and I have taken my passion for country living and am living those dreams, right here in the city. There are dogs, but I pretend they’re wolves or coyotes! There’s sirens, but there aren’t any deer to eat what I’m growing! And the funny thing is that country chicken people come to the city to see my ‘Urban Farm!’

But it wasn’t until this morning, when I read the excerpt below that a light bulb went on in my brain! Freedom from the lies that have ensnared and held me back all these years.

Thomas More explains this in an excerpt from his book, “Utopia”:

“The scientific investigation of nature is not only a most enjoyable process but also the best possible means of pleasing the Creator…He has the normal reactions of an artist. Having put the marvelous system of the universe on show for human beings to look at—since no other species is capable of taking it in—He must prefer the type of person who examines it carefully, and really admires his work, to the type that just ignores it and like the lower animals remains quite unimpresed by the whole astonishing spectacle.”

I see that, all along, God was calling me closer to HIMSELF. The means by which he chose to do that has always been creativity–his creativity and design; his beauty, his love and His artistry.

I have been and will always be captivated by Him.

I am not a disappointment to God for being absolutely crazy about nature, the country, gardening and enjoying Him in all of it! He made me that way and he delights in seeing me impressed by the spectacle of His creation.