The past thirteen years has truly been an incredible journey for our family.  The fact that The Outdoorsman and I even own a ranch, much less thirty beautiful acres full of God’s amazing glory, is astonishing and overwhelming to me every single day.  When we met one another almost thirteen years ago, we were both broken and hurting from failed marriages and dreams that had been shattered by human choices.  Our pasts were very different from one another and we definitely seemed like an unlikely couple to many people.  Enter in God.

Over the years, God has proven Himself faithful to us by showing us how to navigate our way concerning a blended family, hurting children, struggling finances, spiritual attack, family struggles, health restraints, and more. We have never lived in the same city with all three of our children due to our blended family.  Over the past four years, we have lived in three, four, and even five different cities at once since our oldest two children are attending universities in two different towns.

Despite our complicated family life, God has given all of us a great sense of peace concerning our little family.  He has given us creative ways to spend quality time with one another whenever possible and The Outdoorsman has been stellar in the area of driving and creating family time no matter how far we are separated from one another.  We take full advantage of time in the car with our three children because, for years, most of our time with them was spent traveling to and from destination to destination.

When God brought us together, He already knew about Green Acres.  He already knew about the dream that both The Outdoorsman and I had in our hearts to live on land with beautiful trees, ponds, and pastures.  When we first met, we lived in two different sprawling cities in Texas.  We didn’t even discuss the dream in our hearts to live on a ranch.  It was over time, during the years that followed our marriage, that our dream began working itself out into a vision for land, farm animals, pastures, ponds, trees, and a place for our grown children to visit as adults with families of their own.

When we first drew the triangle on a real estate website (literally!) and started searching for land, we had never even heard of the rural community where we ended up purchasing our ranch.  All we saw was an opportunity to do something even bigger than we had originally planned that was actually at the bottom end of our price range.  It was so exciting to think we could get three times the original amount of land we were hoping for within our limited budget.  True, the house was very plain and definitely needed work, but the land was better than we ever imagined owning.  Absolutely stunning.   The best thing about it all is that God even threw in “bonus items” such as beautiful views on the drives to work for both of us, an extra pond, ravines that are wet-weather creeks, a small forest we didn’t even know existed until we walked the property, cooling winds blowing across our property almost all of the time, fencing and cross-fencing all around the property, nice neighbors all around us, a beautiful view of the sunrise and sunset, and peace in our hearts when we are home.  We are so grateful for these special blessings that we never even knew about or considered when purchasing our ranch.

When God took The Outdoorsman and I on our difficult journeys, He knew all along where we were heading.  We may have felt lost for a while along the journey, but God knew what needed to happen to get us to our dream home and property.   We had some years when the path seemed dimly lit for both of us, but God directed our steps during those years and led us down paths that enabled us to begin our Green Acres adventure.  We are so thankful for our incredible journey. It has given us both a great appreciation for our new home and family that, I believe, will never lesson or wane over time.