Clarity of Vision

I mentioned in a previous post that we had some family direction that I would soon announce.  And since I know everyone has been waiting on pins and needles :)  Here it is...

But first a bit of background...

When we moved here from Tx we were seeking the Lord as to where we would live in SC.  We knew we wanted to be back in the country and live near our good friends that were also moving as well.  A beautiful piece of property across from our friends was for sale, which we purchased and named SpringMeadows.  But we still needed a temporary place to live.  My mom was here ahead of us and so began calling on rental properties.  She called a man about a doublewide in the country.  He said that was rented but that he had a big, 5 bedroom home he was currently living in that he might consider renting.  Mom knew immediately when she went out there that it was perfect for us.  This is where we are living now.  Our landlord has become a dear friend to us and is a sweet Christian.  This place has suited our needs in every way.  The doublewide that originally was for rent that  my mom called on, eventually my parents moved into on the same property.  

Fast forward now 2 1/2 years... We have been waiting and praying for the ability to begin out at SpringMeadows.  But SM is a raw piece of land...no water, septic, electricity, road, etc.  So no matter what angle we tried to plan it was a huge undertaking.  We thought of building a double garage and moving into it while we built the rest of the house..but even that would be a big bite to get the land able to be lived on with all the things I listed above.  So we kept praying and waiting.

And then the vision came clear...we WERE home.  Why not see if we could buy this home.  This place has been a sweet haven and wonderful place to raise our children.  Is roomy, and in the country, and 7 mins from our dear friends.  So we approached our landlord who had actually already thought of it.  So, long story short, we are in the process of purchasing the home we are currently in.  We have had the inspections and are waiting on the appraisal.  All being well, we hope to have everything finalized before too long.  

We have some really great plans for this house too... After we finalize the sale, we are going to enter into major remodeling.  For those of you who have been here I will try to describe it for you.  First of all, the biggest problem for us in this house has been the lack of eating space.  So we are thinking of making our current living room into a dining hall.  We will knock out the wall between the living room and kitchen and make the kitchen open up into the dining hall.  Off the back of the house we are going to put a large addition on which will  have our living room with a fire place (if possible) and lots of windows and off the other side of the addition will be pantry/laundry/closet and mud room.  Outside under the addition we are talking about a nice carport.  Then we are talking about the back room of the house becoming Steven's and my room and knocking out the wall between the little back bathroom and the room to make a second master bedroom (if you remember, we are using the master bedroom as a schoolroom/guest room) complete with sometime I have longed for for years....a big garden tub.  :)  S wants to make under the house really nice and pour concrete for a nice workshop and gameroom under there as well.

We also plan on redoing all the floors (ripping out the carpet and probably putting in wood) and repainting everywhere.

So there you have our exciting change of plans.  It's the same vision --  the Lord just had us take a turn we had not anticipated.  We are thinking about what the  name of our place will be.  For those of you who know S, he names everything.  So there will be a new name announcement soon..and with that maybe even a new blog, we shall see.

I should say, all of this is, of course, Lord willing.  He could have surprises waiting for us we did not anticipate or close doors that are not His will.  So we take each day as He leads us and move forward in faith that He is guiding us.  But, as our friend and landlord said, he sees this merely as another revolving in the door of Providence from when we first contacted him over 2 years ago.  

Thanks for sharing in our excitement!