Feeling Nostalgic

Our house is being shown today.

No, not the Greentown house. {Still waiting for the paperwork to go through on that. Hoping it takes place before, you know, we qualify for AARP.}

Our house.

We are actually really excited about this news. We've had the home on the market for a few weeks and we're excited for people to come through and see if it might work for them as a place to live in a new season of life.

But at the same time, it's strange to think about packing up all that has been what we've known together in our {granted, short} married life and starting over somewhere else.

Last night we worked together to clean and organize and make sure the house was ready to be seen by people who don't know its story...and that's when it kind of hit me. They won't know its story. It's good, I know, in some ways. These people will walk in the door, and if they decide this is the house for them, they'll come in and bring their portable memories with them, and they'll begin a new story in this house.

And they should.

But as Ryan and I moved through the house, doing our cleaning and organizing, I smiled over all the memories we've made within these walls in the last almost 22 months of marriage.

* The night we dragged ourselves in from our packed car after our honeymoon and collapsed in front of the fireplace to take our "home at last" photo with our chalkboards, looking all bedraggled from a long trip, but excited to BE home...in our home...to start our life.

* The carpet we painstakingly picked out together during the great home reno of 2013...and the hardwood floors underneath that claimed the life of a coffee mug during the short time we lived on hardwoods between the grandma carpet and the Shaffer carpet. We're not quite healed from that loss.

* The day, halfway through December, when we scoured the picked over remains of lopsided Charlie Brown Christmas trees at the tree lot and brought home our first ever {for either of us!} live tree and placed him ceremoniously in the corner, declaring him to be "Chuck." We decorated him with the smattering of ornaments we'd amassed in the short relationship we'd shared, and while it wouldn't win a magazine award, it was our first tree and we loved it.

* The kitchen we ripped apart together, channeling our inner Carl and Ellie {from the movie Up}, and the final look we loved so much. We repainted, redid the floors, redid the counter tops and got a respectable stove that wasn't missing a giant chunk of finish from the day the plate was too hot coming out of the microwave and clattered down with a bang. The kitchen where we've teamed up to make some fabulous meals, for us and for company. The kitchen that has produced thousands of pots of coffee and subsequent meaningful conversations.

* The bathroom we renovated...three times...proving to nearly be my undoing of house messes. But it was also proof that my husband is persistent and creative in making sure the renovation is done correctly, no matter how frustrating it gets. And oh, oh, oh, what an improvement it was.

* And of course, our pirogi {gazebo in your dictionary...pirogi in ours} that has brought us so much joy. So much entertaining has taken place under its canopy, so many naps for two in the giant hammock, so many fires in the pit, s'mores and hot dogs for us on chilly fall nights. Our outdoor living space that we adore.

We love this place. It has been a lovely home for us. And we are praying already for the people who will follow behind us. We pray that each room will hold meaningful memories for them as well. We hope they enjoy the heart and soul we poured into these four walls, and we hope God continues the heritage that began here so many years ago when my grandparents moved in with their own hopes and dreams.

Meanwhile, we look forward to our own new memories in a new place {that we don't even have, but it will come when it's time} that can be fully ours from the start.

Can't wait!

The Saturday Six

One.

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Throughout the year, Beth Moore travels around the country with her Living Proof Live conference and reaches THOUSANDS of women with her teaching. Today she's in Fort Wayne. As in...where I work! And today isn't just for Fort Wayne. It's the day of the Living Proof Live Simulcast, which means the conference will stream to churches and groups all over the place! I'm excited to be working this event for the station, but I wanted to let you know it was happening in case you're inclined to pray for the many women needing a touch from God's Word today!

Two.

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I LOVE a good story, and KariAnne over at Thistlewood Farms is a good storyteller. I LOVED her posts this week about the house before Thistlewood Farms. This is part one...
...and this is part two.


Three.

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Some of you might be familiar with Bible teacher Christine Caine, but some of you might not know her. She's an author, a speaker on the Women of Faith circuit, and she is heavily involved with campaigns to end human trafficking. Earlier this summer she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and she has subsequently had surgery and has been declared cancer free. But this blog post was powerful. Whether or not your life has been closely touched by cancer {and I can hardly imagine that it hasn't, anymore}...this post is worth a read.

Four.

Not gonna lie. Pretty excited that The Biggest Loser is back. I LOVE this show!! I don't have a favorite contestant yet, but I do like the new trainers. I am not a big fan of change, but I think this is going to be a good change for this season!!  

Five.

Love Francis Chan's books...but this is a whole new side of him I'd never seen!

Six.

Source

Found this blog this week - more healthy eating recipes. It looks interesting to me! I y haven't been able to dive fully through it, but I wanted to pass it on to you just in case there are more hidden treasures than I even know!!

Home

I think today will conclude this little mini-series I've been writing about our home. Really appreciate you reading along!

In 2012, one hundred twelve years after some man I don't know had a dream to build a house...seventy-seven years after my grandparents moved in...and twelve years after I moved in, this house got a new name.

It ceased just being Bekahland and became...Shafferland.

When Ryan and I got married, he owned a home and I owned this one, and we chose to live here for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its almost-halfway-between-two-jobs location.

He moved in to Shafferland, but he also moved in to project-land. So many things needed updated and fixed and...well...helped.

And for the last {almost} year, we've worked so hard on this place. We redid the kitchen, two bathrooms, the carpet in the main living areas, created an outside living space and replaced the plumbing. We added shutters and began landscaping.


It's been a year of hard work and long, frustrating, inconvenient days, but looking around...I'm so happy to see what we've done. Not only does it look better...but it's ours. It's home. I tell Ryan over and over that I wish Grandma and Grandpa could see this place, because I know they would love it. They would love the way we love this house...and they would love the cozy place it's become.

We love coming home. We love resting in this place we've worked hard together to make our own.

People ask us a lot of questions...and I think the only thing that comes close to the most popular question {when are you having kids?} is So.....what's going on with the housing situation? Are you moving to Fort Wayne? What's happening?

Are you ready for the answer? Here it is:

We have no idea.

True story! We have spent hours working through all conceivable {and a handful of inconceivable} scenarios, and we are not sure what's next for us.

But this I can tell you, without a doubt.

If we stay here in this house...forever...what a legacy that will be! To be able to trace the story back to the box-on-bricks beginning like I've done for you...and then recount the memories yet to be made...spectacular! To carry on the legacy of my grandparents would be an honor. We have big dreams for this place that would be such fun to put into place. If we stay...it will be grand. It will be a joy in every way.

If we move out of this house and into another one...then this house will be one of the most treasured memories of my life. It will always be the place where I wrote my book...and where God carried me through my darkest season. It will always be the place where Ryan came to ask me to pray about a future together. It will be the place we came home to after our honeymoon, where we spent our first Christmas, and where we learned to be a team. It will always be the place that we made our home.

But for as much as I love it...as much as we love it...and we so, so do, we also know, it's just a house.

We are the home. Wherever this man I love so much sits beside me and holds me close is home.

The Making of Bekahland

When I bought the house...I prayed fervently that this would be a place where God moved. I didn't look at it as an investment, but rather a ministry base. I wanted to make it home - an inviting place where people wanted to visit. I wanted it to have its own unique flavor and flair that people recognized as mine.

Maybe you'll get this...and it sounds a bit silly...but it's true. As excited as I was to have this house and to make it mine and to carry on the legacy...it was bittersweet to do all that on my own. I'd always dreamed of making it home for someone, and it was hard, sometimes, to be enthused about doing this on my own. But many years before, I'd read Debby Jones and Jackie Kendall's book Lady in Waiting and remembered the admonition to not put my life on hold until I had someone to hold, so I set about making a home.

I painted rooms {because I could...without asking permission} and had some successes and failures in paint choice. I planted flowers {we won't talk about the time I failed to mix up the tulip bulbs and planted one row of yellow on one side of the porch and one row of red on the other side of the porch}. I invited our student workers over to watch TV shows at night...I opened the guest room to friends passing through if they wanted to spend the night...and I held a ladies' Bible study here for several years, too.

I had scrapbooking marathons with friends, sleepovers with my friends' kids {no one really slept when they were supposed to} and hosted Christmas dinner.

I wrote and cooked and decorated and prayed and read and tried to live a good, full life in this place entrusted to me.

My skills in home improvement were...ahem...sad. I hired out a few improvements and did what minimal {read: pitiful} landscaping attempts I could muster. It became home. It became all I hoped it would. It became something I believe Grandma and Grandpa would have been pleased to visit.

And then I started dating Isaac. The first time we met in person was not in this house. It was not even in this town. It was miles away, and when I drove home and walked in the front door, late at night, I stared around at the familiar walls...with all the memories...and in an instant...it wasn't home anymore.

I called one of my friends and said to her, "I can't believe it. He's never even been here...and yet this is suddenly not home anymore." He'd already told me of his hope to marry me, and with those words...for the first time, home became a person...not a place.

Weeks went by, and this house became a place I couldn't be...and that had never happened to me before. I drove. I walked. I sat on the back porch. Anything...but inside the walls that felt empty and crushing.

And then the phone call. The one in which he told me it was really, really over. The one in which he told me he was moving on with his life and I needed to do the same.

Ironically the call came at the start of a weekend when this house was a hub of visitors...in town for our 10 year college reunion. I was hosting...and cooking...and welcoming...and realizing I had to find a way to make this a home again. Isaac had walked away and I might never find love again. If I couldn't have love, I had to have home.

And even as I sought to make that happen, I hoped, way down in the deep places of my heart, that the feeling of a person-filled-home really would happen for me someday.

On My Own

Thanks so much for being willing to read along this past week on my house adventures. It's been fun to tell this story! Just a couple more days and you'll be all caught up! :)

I rented Grandma and Grandpa's house from my sister for four years. I had a roommate for the first nine months...and then she moved out. I was on my own for three terrifying months...the first time I had ever TRULY lived on my own in my natural lifetime.

My friend Christi bought me a kitten and named him Kaegan, and while I knew in my head that he was 100% ineffective against anyone coming into the house to harm me, his tiny furry presence was calming to me. I loved that little guy, and in the quiet days and long nights {full of light, because I refused to turn them off when I went to sleep} he kept me company.

A new roommate moved in then...I'd met her in college and she came back to Marion to attend graduate school. She stayed with me for three years, teaching me all manner of things I needed to know. We had a lot of laughter in this house...and our share of conflict, too. She was training to be a counselor, and I was a perfect test case for her.

In those three years, we lived a lot of life in that house. Movie nights...experimental cooking {and subsequent MASSIVE failures}...trying to mesh the decorating styles of a foo-foo girlie girl and a Harley-riding tomboy...celebrating holidays...welcoming friends...and much more. 

When she graduated, she told me she needed to move out on her own and start her own life...and I knew she was right. We were still friends, but neither of us really did well sharing a home with another girl. We wanted things our own way...and our ways were mightily different.

I was eager for a seasonal change in life, but petrified about what would come next. I'd never lived on my own, and for the first time, the thought of actually living on my own wasn't as scary as paying for it. Admittedly not stellar with math, I stared at my budget sheet and wondered if I could swing not only a mortgage payment, but also the full weight of all the utilities and other bills. It didn't make sense in my head...but then not much about math did make sense in my head.

In addition to all these thoughts, my sister told me that she needed a change in her life - one that freed her from the role of owning a rental. She would be happy to sell the house to me if I wanted to buy it...or she would put it on the market and I could buy or rent something else.

So, one evening, while Angela was gone, I strolled around the springtime backyard, inhaling the scent of lilacs and new grass...and I prayed. I was terrified of making the wrong decision...buying a house I couldn't afford OR losing a house our family had worked so hard to get back.

Not many times in my life have I heard the unmistakable Voice of God giving me direction, but that spring night was one time I did. Right out there in the yard, with no fanfare or fireworks, my heart knew. I was to stay. I was to buy the house. I was to buy it - AND not worry about the money, even if I didn't have a roommate.

This news filled me with peace...and yet was heavily bittersweet. I'd never contemplated buying a house without a husband by my side. It wasn't that I thought such a thing was wrong, but in my mind it somehow felt like admitting defeat.  Conceding that a husband might never show up. Plowing ahead into a dream that felt like something I should share with him...but he wasn't there.

I jumped in...without really knowing how to swim. I talked to banks and lenders...appraisers and contractors...my parents and sisters...my co-workers. They showered me with advice, some of which conflicted and some of which was miles over my head. I begged God NOT to let me do anything ridiculously stupid that would penalize me financially for the rest of my days, and with shaking hand...signed paper...after paper...after paper.

The house was mine. Angela was still living there when I signed for it and she celebrated my happy-home-ownership-to-you day with me by breaking open sparkling grape juice and toasting my new adventure.

And then she packed boxes and moved out, leaving Kaegan and me with an entire house for just the two of us. A house that seemed empty - not just of laughter and conversation, but also furniture. We spread out what we did have and named it home.

I quickly learned that while I'd insisted that the house be Grandma and Grandpa's for all the years I rented it, the dry ink bearing my name on the house now brought a new stirring to my heart. It had been theirs...but it was mine now, and I needed people to recognize that. I needed to recognize that.

I'm the much-baby of our family and without a husband or child to declare me a grown-up, I hoped the title of home owner would do the trick. Life didn't look the way I planned, but I needed someone - everyone - to see that I was a capable adult. And in many ways, I needed to see a capable adult emerging in myself.

So I bought a house.

A house with a sure foundation...and one I could build on.

The Familiar and the Reinvented

{If you haven't read the first few sections of the story...scroll down.}

When I saw Grandma and Grandpa's address on the computer screen, I forwarded the email to my entire family with the added note: Anyone want to buy me a house for graduation?

I was kidding. In a not kidding sort of way.


I sat back and waited for the "Ha ha! Good one!" replies, and instead messages such as "Call her and tell her not to sell it until we talk to her..." came to me.

Seriously??

So I emailed this mostly unknown-to-me person with an awkward, "Hey, you don't know me, but you bought my grandparents' house, and I get the feeling the family misses it and wants it back" reply.

Just a couple of nights later, I climbed in a car with the friend who planned to room with me after college and we pulled up in front of that house of memories again.

It looked different. The gargantuan bushes that hid the front porch were gone. The old screen door with the giant "K" in the middle had been replaced by an updated storm door. It looked different and yet looked like home.

She welcomed us inside and gave us an invitation to walk through the house at our leisure.

Everything was just like I remembered...with a hint of beautiful updates. Things Grandma and Grandpa would have loved.

Bedroom carpet pulled up and Grandpa's hardwood floors refinished.  Beautiful new paint colors throughout the house. A chandelier in the dining room. And textured wallpaper on the ceiling that made it look like a tin ceiling. Amazing.

It was fresh and beautiful...and yet still had the reminder of the home I'd always known. It even smelled the way I remembered...just like coffee.

We walked through the house and I knew it could be our home. My future roommate loved it too, and just a few days later, I was back in the living room, inhaling the coffee smell while my mom and sister walked through the house, looking at the new as it mingled with the familiar.

And before we left that day...the house was ours.

My sister bought it and my roommate and I signed contracts to rent it from her.

Y'all, it was beyond all I could have ever imagined. My roommate and I had been hoping for a decent apartment. We never dreamed God would pave the way for a whole HOUSE. A whole house that even though rented...could in many ways be ours. Abundantly above and beyond.

July 3, 2000...after a week of sickness that included a trip to the ER...we moved in. Trucks and cars filled with boxes lined the block and our friends and family moved us in.

A new start on a familiar foundation. A new generation of memories.

{PS - remember I'd been VERY SICK. I think the photos reflect that. Well. And it was just a bad phase in general.}

My bedroom was the same one I'd always slept in when I spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa...and then it was mine. Mine for real. No suitcases. no packing up in the morning.

Mine.

It was strange...to be in their house and not call it theirs. In fact, for a long time, I did call it theirs. I was living in their house.

When the first Thanksgiving rolled around, I hosted the traditional dinner and even served mac n cheese in Grandma's glass dish that I'd inherited. I tried to make it a holiday she'd be proud of. I tried to do it as she would have done.

It was a lesson I needed to learn...to not recreate the past...but to create a present and a future.

For the next four years, I lived in those walls, with two different roommates, and I tried to keep the past alive. I tried to do everything as Grandma and Grandpa would have done. I insisted things stay the same. I wanted to preserve a past rather than perfect a present.

And then came the summer when it all changed.

Letting Go

{If you missed parts 1 and 2 of this story, you can read them here and here...and then today's will make much more sense.}

I was a senior in high school when Grandma died.  She was the only grandparent I had left, and I still remember receiving the news. I remember going to the basement of my parents' home and crying and telling God I never again wanted to do this kind of grief by myself. Begged Him not to take anyone else away from me until I had someone to support me in that kind of hurt.

In the weeks following her death, my mom and aunt worked to clean out the house...and while they could remove and divide the things, the memories were permanently fixed. That box on bricks turned into a home...where we had celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, and where hours of conversation had taken place...held all those things.

I could no longer walk through the spare bedroom where I slept each time I spent the night...or sit at the top of the stairs where I played Hi-Ho-Cherry-O with my cousin the Christmas I received it as a gift...or wrestle my way to the far corner of the dining room to my assigned seat for Thanksgiving dinner...or dig a remote control out of the recliner late at night before settling in on the couch to snooze...or walk past that spot in the kitchen where Grandma discovered the half-gallon of ice cream after I'd accidentally left it out overnight...or walk through the yard where we had BBQ birthday parties in the summers.

In the great division of the stuff, I garnered a few treasures...the glass dish with the wicker basket that held the macaroni and cheese...the cedar chest Grandpa gave Grandma as a gift...a handful of random kitchen utensils...a set of everyday dishes to put aside for later when I'd have my own place.

But the house of memories went up for sale. And just a few weeks later, a young woman purchased it to have as her first home. Sixty years after Grandma and Grandpa walked into a box on bricks and got to work making it home, she walked into a home with a strong foundation and began making her own home.

***

Four years later, I sat at my newly acquired desk in the Financial Aid Office. Not yet a college graduate, I had to shake my head every time I stepped inside the blue walls of the office...and  realized it was mine. When my senior year began, I rather hoped I could land a secretarial job somewhere after college, and before the diploma was even in my hand, the office supervisors, who had watched me work as a student throughout my college career, offered me a full time job...as a Financial Aid Counselor.

Though I was scared out of my mind at the responsibility of the job, I took it, and before I knew quite what was happening, I had business cards and my own phone number and a real email address as an employee of the school.

And as the owner of this email address, I had access to fun messages...like all the stuff people sold via email...everything from clothing to houses. And so it was that on this particular day, I glanced over an email as it came in...a house for sale.

The address looked so very familiar.

I read the house description...sounded like a lovely home.

Then I went back to the address...

...and it hit me.

It was Grandma and Grandpa's home.

And Then These Newlyweds...

Remember yesterday when I told you that 114 years ago, some guy made good on the American dream and built a house?

Well...thirty-five years down the road, the dream changed for him. I'm not sure what changed it. Maybe he had a chance to start over somewhere else, or maybe he was aging and couldn't maintain it anymore...but whatever happened, that house went on the market.

And a couple of crazy newlyweds...in their early 20's...saw something in that box propped up on bricks. The box with exposed lightbulbs hanging down from the ceiling of each room.

I wonder what she thought...the young bride...when she walked into the house for the first time. I wonder if she saw the potential in that box. I'll be honest...I'm not sure I would have. I'm not sure I could have looked past the rough frame to see a future.

But Grandma did.

She and Grandpa...so new at life together...joined hands and put $50.00 (yes...fifty dollars...) down on the table and with that promise...the house became theirs.

They made payments of $12.00 {yes, that says twelve dollars} a month until the house was paid off.

And they set out to make that primitive house into a home.

Grandpa worked hard...and he added a real foundation to the house...and electricity...and plumbing...and a kitchen...and hardwood floors...and a garage...and much more...slowly. They didn't go crazy into debt for it. They did what they could, when they could.

And slowly it became home.

It became the place they welcomed their first child. My mom. {Literally the place they welcomed her. She was born within the four walls.} And then their second child. My aunt.

They made it home in every way...not just the paint color on the walls and the curtains at the windows...but this was also the place where they committed their lives to the Lord, taught two girls, housed family members in need, dreamed dreams, planned vacations, and worked through hard days and crushing blows.

This was home.

And by the time I was born, they'd lived almost fifty years within the walls of that house and built literal and figurative foundations.

I remember that place. The home where I came for Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. Where Grandma cooked creamy mac n cheese in the glass dish that nestled in the wicker basket. Where cousins gathered around on folding chairs to slide up to the extension of the extension of the dining room table. Where Grandpa lined up dining room chairs to keep me from falling off the couch when I spent the night with them. Where Grandma and I sat in recliners to watch Nick at Nite {when it was the truly classic stuff} on Saturday nights after she was a widow and I had a driver's license.

It was home. A far cry from the home they made their own 79 years ago next month.

It was a warm. loving, inviting place with memories. Good memories. Hard memories. Forever memories. The stuff of which life is made.

And I never knew it would be mine to continue the legacy.

Turning Centuries and New Beginnings

I have a story to tell you...might take me a few days. Hoping you'll enjoy it...thanks for indulging me!

It started back at the turn of the century. No, not that century. Not the one where we all sucked in a deep breath and squeezed our eyes tightly shut as the clock slipped from 11:59 to 12:00...and then cautiously peeked one eye open to see if everything carried on as it should. The year when we were relieved to find lights and computers still marching forward and all our Y2K worries unfounded.

The turn of the century before that. The year when William McKinley was president, when Hawaii became an official US territory and when Milton Hershey introduced the milk chocolate Hershey bar.

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As you can see, it shaped up to be a good year...made even better by a little something else that will never make the "big lists."

That was the year that...without the aid of Pinterest or library books or HGTV, some man...whose name I don't even know...took a dream from his mind and made it real.

He purchased a tiny sliver of land and built a house.

The American dream.

His America didn't look like mine. His world didn't yet know about vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, teddy bears, crayons, teabags or the Model T Ford. And chances are good, he didn't own a car at all.

Yet somehow, in what would seem like poverty to me today, he built a house. A box propped up with bricks at each corner and the hot and cold air of Indiana flowing freely beneath its floor.

I wonder what that box looked like when it was first constructed. I wonder about that man...if he had a wife...kids...someone to share his dream with. Someone to look at his sketches on paper and catch the excitement gleam in his eye when he shared his new idea. I wonder how many rooms the house had and how many years went by before he could afford the luxury of a single, exposed light bulb to hang from the center of each room's ceiling.

I wish I knew that man. I wish I knew his name. I wish I could sit down with him and ask him to show me those dreams sketched out on paper and what he envisioned when he captured the American dream. When a tiny piece of land became his and a crude box of a house was propped up on top.

And if I could meet him, I would say....Sir...thank you for dreaming. Thank you for making your dream come true. Thank you for taking a risk in a world where you didn't have much in the way of any kind of resource. 

Thank you for building our house.