Our Long Way Home- Prologue

On the phone the other day, a family friend told my husband that we really should write out our story. The story of our trials this last while. The trials we’ve faced while working toward our goal. The goal of a ‘real’ homestead for our family. Finally.

We’ve shared bits & pieces here and there as we’ve gone along this journey, but haven’t really shared the full journey.

We discussed this while taking the kids out for a drive to sight see the prairies yesterday.

I agreed that yes, I’ve wanted to write about all we’ve been going through, but that I felt like our story wasn’t finished yet, and every time I sat down to write out my thoughts about all that’s been going on, I just wasn’t sure how to do it without it sounding like it was all negative, yet also not making it all seem like unrealistic fluff & stuff. I felt like either it’d all come out sounding whiny, or sounding phony.

I really dislike whiny, and I really dislike phony.

Life, is real, even when it’s difficult.

Negativity in life does not equal = life is negative.

I want to share the positive through it all, as difficult as the positive can be to see at times. I told Graydon (dh) that I wanted to be able to share the story after it’s all said and done, after we’ve reached the final chapter of this story.

As of right now, this moment, Monday May 28th 2012, we’re facing having no home in just 33 days. We’ve been evicted from our rental/lease (a blessing in a way, this place failed a health and safety inspection) and no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to get the banks to approve us for a mortgage to buy something, rather then rent again, short of some sort of miracle occurring.

We’ve been unable to find another suitable home to rent. A couple of real fixer upper/vacant farms have come up, yet we can’t rent, or buy, a real fixer upper at this time. We have our reasons for that, but can’t fully share those reasons publicly. I’ll simply say it involves adding to our family (no, I’m not pregnant) and the house we live in must be up to certain standards. Any home a family lives in should be up to health and safety standards regardless though. I don’t think that’s asking for too much right now.

Graydon pointed out during our conversation though, that really, the story doesn’t live so much at the END of the story. It’s the struggles, our life right now at this moment, how we get TO that end, that tells the real story. The full story.

Graydon is right. I know that he is. Yet, how does one share so many struggles, while knowing that it is in those struggles that your family is being shaped, created, and are all for a good end, even when right now, they feel so very difficult?

How does one share all these negative trials, the difficulties, in a real, honest, way, while knowing all the while that there’s been so much blessing through it all, regardless of those struggles?

If I share the trials, readers are tempted to feel pity.

If I share the good, readers are tempted to envy.

The real story wants to be shared because it is not a story one should pity, it is not a story one should envy, it is our life, our journey. I’ll do my best to share it as it is, and continue to hope that as I share, it will continue to unfold and that the final outcome will be that we indeed finally come to the end of…

Our long way home.