Rose Returns From the Farm!! And, The Hope For Things to Come...

Last week, during a normal school day out in our classroom, the boys and I received a wonderful surprise.  Steve brought our golden retriever, Rose, back from his parents' farm!  When we moved last fall, we decided to keep her back at the farm until we had acquired enough acreage to build our own homestead on, a place where she would have room to roam. 

Needless to say, we were all bursting with delight!! The boys bailed out of their studies, running all smiles outside to reconnect with their long lost friend.  She was the happiest dog on the planet...until she saw the backyard fences, fences that she tries every day to wiggle under, over and through, poor girl!  

I'll confess, seeing Rose brought me to tears. Not so much because I'm that attached to our family friend, but because seeing her again brought back to life a part of me that has been a bit overwhelmed lately by doubt and discouragement.

Living in town while we wait for the opportunity to buy or rent land to farm, land upon which we might build a homestead has been more difficult than we anticipated.  The waiting presses upon us, and at times causes us to be restless, as we are fully aware of the passage of time with our boys, especially our oldest son, Ben.  Every moment confined to a city lot, to us, feels like an eternity when the ache for open spaces is nothing near subtle. 

Steve and I were born to live in the country and to raise our family on a farm.  Outside of our Catholic faith, the desire for farm life is the #1 dream that drew our hearts together when we first met. Sometimes your dreams become so much a part of who you are, you can't really imagine your life, or your children's lives, apart from them.  

The waiting on and wondering about the Lord's plans for our family has not been easy.  It's a challenge to be present to daily callings currently played out from day to day, to stay focused on what's in front of us when our hearts really long to be somewhere else....

Like here.  Does this look familiar? 

Yep, it's a photo from the Zuckerman's farm from the movie Charlotte's Webb.  I thank you, Pinterest for keeping my dreams alive!

I dream of this place and all of these too...

{Sigh.}

{Dream Home - Gotta Dream!}

{Oh, and chickens, mustn't forget the chickens.}

And, a herd of these.  Yes, these.

With all of these deeply nestled dreams waiting to be realized, I am reminded today, Holy Thursday, that while it's possible that such hopes will never be known, in the end, all joy in the letting go of such things must come from knowing, from truly believing that a farm, any farm on this earth is not and will never be my real home.  A greater hunger for heaven is the blessed fruit born from detachment, born from the absence of what we believe will make us happy.  That hunger for heaven anchors our souls ever deeper into the ONE THING, the only thing, that can truly fill us up, and that is a life in Christ.  

Oh, how thankful I am for that, that difficult, but beautiful consolation: 

For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

- 2 Corinthians 4:17

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