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First things first today! Time to announce the winner of the Jennifer Rothschild book from last week's giveaway. We put all the names in a hat and Ryan drew out the name SHERYL GLANCY!! Sheryl!! You won!!! :) I will message you to make arrangements to get it to you! :)

And now...on to today's post!

I am so eager to tell you all about my retreat weekend, but I am still putting all my thoughts together, so today I want to tell you about a beautiful little God-moment we got to experience last week!

I wrote a post last month to commemorate the six month mark of living in our new home, and in that post, I mentioned that we knew our old home's new owner was loving it well. But it was a surprise and complete joy last week to get an email from his mom, who just wanted to let me know that it really was true.

He's been in the house five months now {ACTUALLY, to be fair, I have to say that she said it was his fifth monthiversary in the house, and how much did I love seeing her use that word???} and that he really was loving it.

And not only was he personally loving the house, but he was doing with it exactly what he hoped and envisioned he would do with it: making it a place of ministry. It's a home away from home for college students who need a place to escape and have a home-atmosphere for an evening. She said they were responding and coming over every week, and she even sent me a couple of pictures to show me ministry in action.

I wanted to cry in the best way! He is using the home in ways we never could have. It is a resource and asset to him in a way it couldn't be for us. To see proof of the legacy continuing was such a joy to my week.

AND THEN.

Yesterday we went to a celebration for the centennial celebration of my old church. {The one I attended before the Ryan days.} I will tell you more about it later, but it was such a fun way to see old friends and celebrate the work God has done in the 100 years of that church's life. One of my friends brought a housewarming gift for us. She'd told me quite some time ago that she had a gift for us, and Sunday I unwrapped it.

And I cried.

Again.

This was our home.

And I want to tell you why I love this so much. I have another watercolor painting that I inherited because I bought this house - a painting done probably thirty years ago, when Grandma and Grandpa owned the house. The structure is the same, but house in that watercolor is their home. Hanging plants on the front porch, green carpet on the porch, big bushes in front of the railing.

This picture is our home. This picture shows the siding I put on as soon as I bought the house. This picture shows the red shutters Ryan and I added after we got married. It shows the star we bought on vacation and Ryan hung above the stairs. It shows the landscaping bricks Ryan painstakingly added and the gray paint I applied to the porch after I ripped off the carpet. This shows the metal sign my friend Jenny gave me and Ryan hung on the front of the house and the coffee filter wreath I made at a craft day. It shows our rocking chair and the table that belonged to Grandma and Grandpa that always sat by the front door.

The picture makes the words true. Home is wherever I'm with Ryan. And the picture shows the home we created together, building on the foundation made by my grandparents.

This housewarming gift is dear to me. This, combined with the story of how well-loved and intentionally-used the house is every single day...is beautiful. I'm grateful for all of it. My heart smiles.