Someday

We all look forward to someday. It's natural and probably inevitable.  
Someday I'll be... 
Someday I'll have... 
Someday, when we have...then we'll... 
If I just had...then I could... Someday...
And looking forward to someday can be good. Really good. But not if it's limiting your today.

This is a lesson that has really penetrated my heart lately. Ben and I both realized that we were putting so much expectation in this someday that we weren't really living fully in the present. And the worst part is that we know what we were created to do and yet we were saving it for this someday event, as if we couldn't somehow begin right now. But the conviction to live fully present right now has spurred change. A change in our hearts and a change in our perspective and a change in our actions. And change is good. Really good.

For the past year-and-a-half or so, we've been saying that when we get our farm, then we'll have plenty of room to entertain. To have an open door. To do...and... We've always looked at our house with limitations. It's small. It's really small. And it has gotten smaller and smaller as our family has grown. But then it hit us hard. If we don't start now--if we don't steward well what we have right now--then we'll never do it when we have more. Think about it. How many times have you heard, "when I get a treadmill, then I'll finally lose weight" or "when I get my raise, then we'll be able to start saving money" and the list goes on and on. And when that someday comes, our sights are set elsewhere and following through doesn't always stick. We're always looking at some future event as solving all of the problems that currently face us rather than looking at the problems with a different perspective.

So we have decided that no matter what--no matter how small, how cluttered, how lived in our house may be--we are opening our doors now. It's an open invitation to anyone and everyone. If you are hungry, come and eat. If you are thirsty, come and drink. If you are tired, come and relax {as much as you can with two crazy kids wanting to play with you}. If you are lonely, come and find friendship. If you want a place for your kids to play, bring them over. If you just want to be nosey, you are welcome too! And if you want to buy our house, then you are definitely welcome!! We have been so blessed these past few weeks by the people who have come into our home to break bread with us. It is our pleasure, our desire and our destiny. And it feels so good to let the expectations of someday fade in importance and trade it for a richer today.

You can find us at 322 W Newton Ave., York, PA 17401. {But please, if you stop by between 12-3, don't use that lovely door knocker! Let's savor the sweet silence of sleeping babes!!!}

photo credits: Ken Bruggeman

Violet's Dedication

This past Sunday we had Violet dedicated at our church. It's such a special moment in our parenting journey, because it's the point at which we corporately declare that this child is not our own, but God's. And we promise to steward her well throughout her childhood journey so that she grows up to know who she is and to know Jesus' love for her. And there's something powerful in such a corporate acknowledgement.

I love that our pastor walks her around the church for everyone to see. So often, we're scrambling in to the service late and rushing out to get home for naps that I feel like we miss seeing so many sweet faces. And the fact that our congregation also promises to help steward Violet and show her Jesus' love is so powerful and meaningful. Because raising a child takes so many more people and prayers than our own. There are so many influences on our children throughout their journey. Wouldn't it be amazing if each person loved your child and spoke hope, love and destiny over them at each meeting?!

There's Something I Have To Tell You

And no, I'm not pregnant. Promise! {In my family, that's usually the first guess when someone of childbearing age/station begins a sentence that way}

photo credit Ken Bruggeman

Seriously, though, I've been holding out on you. I haven't yet told you the whole story. Fear held me back. But now, fear has to go. And faith must endure.

Over three years ago, God started speaking to Ben's heart and my heart separately. But He was telling us both the same things. Things about our destiny and our future. And then we'd be talking about the things on our hearts, sharing our dreams and desires, and we'd realize that suddenly we were both desiring the same things, dreaming about the same destiny--our futures looked identical--and all of it was new. None of it was familiar. We had been married over a year at that point and none of this had ever come up in conversation.

photo via

Except that I can remember {periodically throughout my life} emphatically declaring: I will NEVER live on a farm. I will NEVER be a farmer's wife.

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But suddenly, my heart yearned for nothing else. Suddenly, the only future I could see involved my family living, working, loving and worshipping in fields and meadows. I could only see a way of life that involved raising animals for meat, dairy, and eggs the way they were intended to be raised--sustainably, on grass. Cows. Pigs. Chickens. And this was all that my husband could see as well. {My husband, who once turned his nose up at the thought of attending an agricultural college because "it stinks!"}

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You see, God laid this destiny on our hearts and from it grew up the desires of our hearts. Three years later, we are at the point where we can no longer decipher between destiny and desire, because they're the same. And it's wonderful.

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There's only one problem. We don't own a farm. We don't have family that owns a farm. And we don't have the finances to afford a farm. Not even a small farmette. Nope. Nothing. But here's the thing--the thing I've been keeping from you--we don't see that as a problem. Because God has promised to provide us with a farm. Three years ago, when He started working on our hearts, He told us that He's prepared a place for us. And He would provide us with a farm.

Now, even with a promise like that, it's hard to imagine it really happening. Circumstances say it won't happen. Natural realities say that it won't happen. And I'm not here preaching some prosperity gospel, but guys--it's going to happen! I've been afraid to tell you this because what if it doesn't happen. But that silly fear is not from my God and lately I've been so burdened by the need to share my story even before it's complete.

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So here it is. We believe that God is going to give us a farm. It's okay to be skeptical and doubtful. Most of the people we've told this to react that way. And we understand. It doesn't make sense. No one has ever seen something like this happen. And you haven't received my promise because it's mine. But we're standing in faith, believing that soon we will be living on a farm, restoring the land and really beginning our journey toward living life as it was intended. Because either God is God or He's not. And we've come to know Him too well {or else we're just too stubborn to admit otherwise} to believe that He doesn't exist and that the things He says are not true.

I know this post is long, but I'd like to share our friends' story. It's a story I was expectantly waiting to hear. And I think you'll be amazed too!

{copied from his Facebook page}:

I've been waiting to release this testimony, but now is the time. As most of you know, my wife and I had been trusting God to provide a minivan for our family the moment we realized our family was growing from 4 to 6. We became a one vehicle family in November 2012 and have watched God provide for our needs through people literally giving us full use of their cars for 3 months at a time. When the twins were born on August 10th, I was caught off guard. The van had not come yet. It certainly wasn't how I planned for it to go down. I thought for sure that the van would precede the twins birth. Three days after the twins were born, I received an email from a woman who had heard me preach a few weeks ago. During the sermon, God put it on her heart that she and her husband were to buy us a minivan. The picture you see is that van. Last Wednesday, the very next day after her email, this couple took me to Performance Toyota in Sinking Spring and wrote a check for $27,500 for a 2012 Toyota Sienna LE with only 10,000 miles on it.
It has always been my desire to see the fruit of what I claim I believe and for everyone who knows me to see the salvation of God in my life. During this whole time, one verse rang out in my heart: "He knows what I need before I ask." And He knew I needed a van. God is good. God is faithful.

Thanks for your prayers!

xoxo,
Tabitha

Sitting In Stillness

When words fail... When the cacophony of my head, heart and soul deafens me... When there is utter chaos inside and no way to explain...

When a thousand fleeting thoughts flash through my mind but so quickly my mind can't finish the thought or process its meaning... When my heart feels so many things that the expression of even one is impossible... When my soul's deepest desires well up from inside and long to find rest...

When I go to pray and nothing comes out...

the Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are a mere breath {ps. 94:11}

delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart {ps. 37:4}

Then I sit in stillness. And breathe. And without words or even one coherent thought, I let the jarring symphony of my heart, mind and soul swell to its peak and decrescendo to an anticlimactic finish. And then there is silence. And then there is peace.