Hello world!

I live in a 28-ft. travel trailer…with no slide-outs.  Not by myself.  My husband and son are blessed to share the space with me.  This was not a dream of mine, a goal, or even a thought I had growing up.  It is a reality, however.

My father-in-law passed away in June of 2016.  He left nearly everything he owned to my husband, which consisted of a few acres of land, around 55 mama cows, a slew of babies, and three bulls.  On the land, sits a 40-plus-year-old double-wide trailer house, threadbare and thoroughly lived-in.  If you were to venture inside it, you would need to be very careful.  There are many places where the floor buckles underneath the old shag carpet.  The toilets rock back and forth (pretty sure that’s not good), old linoleum floor tiles are curled up and broken, and there’s a leak somewhere in the water line, so the house has been disconnected from it.  Some things still work and there are no holes in the walls, but it’s safe to say the old place has served its purpose.

My husband was there the day they pulled it in.  It had rained quite a bit and they had to use a tractor, spinning wheels and all, to pull it into place on the concrete slab.  He says it was a really nice, new home for his dad and stepmom.   Much happiness filled its thin walls over the years.  Much pain, too.  Lawrence’s dad took his last breath in his bedroom, peacefully, where he wanted to be.

It’s like anything else.  There is a season.  Which brings me back to our current living situation.  We moved here this past July so my husband could continue the tradition his dad started decades ago and raise cattle.  He got a full-time job; I got two part-time jobs and we moved.  We couldn’t very well move into the trailer house, so we decided to move into our camper for “just a couple of months” until we could get a new house built on the land.  The best-laid plans…

Last week, we found out the family who began renting our old house in West Texas when we left, with a plan to buy it, would be moving to a different town because of a job change.  We were now going to have to sell it.  Our house plans were placed in a drawer for a later day. I was broken-hearted.  The season of three people packed into an aluminum camper would continue.  It has brought many frustrations – frozen water lines, frozen sewer lines, a kitchen too small to cook much, a tiny shower that only allows about five minutes of warm water, little storage space, no washer and dryer, and having most of what we own in a shipping container storage unit.

But here’s the thing about this season – we have an aluminum roof over our heads, at least five minutes of warm water, and the satisfaction of living on our land and carrying on the work of Lawrence’s dad.  The rest will pass.  God is teaching us about sacrifice, patience, and how little some things really matter in the scheme of things.  One day soon, we will move the old double-wide from its foundation and start a new season.  The camper will be emptied and stored, and we’ll look back on this time as valuable and precious.