Home is the place we all long for. Finding it can sometimes be a perilous journey that tries your faith, relationships and sanity. Recently, I was in a conversation with a friend who had asked how we came to arrive in Tennessee. I had only told him part of the story and he responded by saying how inspiring it was. Of course, I didn’t see it as such back then. Now, it’s a fading memory that comes up rarely and only when asked. But I suppose it does render an illustration of how we exercised either a bit of faith or sheer lunacy. I’ll let you decide which.
Why now?
So why blog about it now? Posterity? No clue. Or perhaps my friend Colby is right. Maybe, it’ll help encourage someone to keep on keeping on. You never know how your past hardship will encourage someone else until you share it.
When my wife, Kristen, was a child, she was repeatedly abused by her grandfather. To add to that strain, Kristen was also abducted and gang-raped as a young adult.
Not long after we were married, her mom asked if we could move to where they lived. It was the small ski town of Tres Ritos, New Mexico. Not the arid plain that most think of (see the above image) but a lush, green wilderness 8,500 feet above sea level in the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains. This was brown bear bear and elk country.
Her step-dad had fallen ill and her mom had wanted to purchase the store connected to the cabins in this 3-mile town. It was beautiful there and the air was as clean as could be. You could hear the sound of the river even from indoors.
We had agreed to run the lodge but neglected to cement the terms beforehand. It was two years into our marriage and what we thought would be a dream job, quickly turned into a nightmare. Electricity for the store alone was around $900 a month. Propane was about $1K a month. As I mentioned, the business was seasonal. Debt quickly mounted. A year later, Kristen’s step-father passed away. He was the only father she would ever know.
The search for home…
We received our income tax refund and would use that to make the move; but where would we call home? Returning to Houston didn’t seem feasible. We knew that wherever we went, we would be going at it alone. We were going to have to start over and rebuild our family tree.
This was where our faith intersected desperation.
One evening, we prayed and asked God where we should go. I opened up a road map (this was before Google Maps) and remembered a place that I had driven through once. Tennessee. Years before, while on a business trip, I had travelled to Washington D.C. for an exhibit on behalf of the art publishing company that I worked for at the time. Remembering how beautiful it was, my eyes wandered there on the map.
But where in Tennessee would we find a new home?
Wherever my finger landed…a suburb of Nashville. Any would do. I searched online for an apartment we could land in. We made arrangements to move but received another blow. Although the owner of the house we were renting from had assured us that we could stay another month before the move, the new owners, friends, wanted us out immediately. So we had to move all of our belongings out and live in a studio cabin for a month.
That was not fun.
Midnight blowout…
After placing a deposit down on an apartment, we packed up the truck and headed east. It was a rough 27-hour drive. Around midnight, the tire from the car trailer blew out spewing sparks everywhere. I was told by the rental company to wait by the truck on the side of the highway until someone arrived within 24 hours. After letting them know I had an 8-month old baby on board, the “kind” person on the phone said that if I didn’t wait, she would sue me. I couldn’t stay with my family on the side of the highway, so I took my chances and left. I never heard from the rental company.
When we arrived in Memphis, the AC in the truck cabin went out…in July. We paused at a rest stop to cool our daughter down. Then, we ventured back out. As we continued on, we were contacted by apartment management and told that we didn’t have a place to live because we had no co-signer and no job. Turning back was not an option, so Kristen called a friend who helped us out – a kindly couple we had left behind. On we went.
It was three months after we arrived and I was still searching for work. The money was about to dry up. I was desperate. I told Kristen that I was going to pick up my guitar, go downtown and play on a corner. She begged me not to and right when I picked up my guitar, the phone rang. It was a job offer as an International Marketing Manager for a music company.
Our prayers were answered.
Through the years, we’ve seen a ton of heartache but have grown as a family through the fires of life and the marches through the wilderness. If I were to name the handful of things that kept our family together it would be our faith in God, our willingness to forgive and choosing to let go of hurt and find joy in the moment. And it would also include the decision to say a definitive “no”.
No, we will not die in the desert.
No, we will not forsake family.
No, we will not despair.
We found a new home. It was wherever we landed…be it a truck with no air conditioning, a tiny apartment cramped with the three people and two dogs or a house in the suburbs. Home is where our family is. It’s where our God is. Home is in our hearts. It’s the seemingly small things that matter more. So if you’re going through a rough patch, please know that you are loved. You may feel like you’re alone but you are not. Stay the course. Don’t give up. Run to Him.
You too can find a home…and rest.
Mucho love,
~L