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It’s amazing to have room for things, and to be organized and CLEAN. In our old house, we didn’t have a pantry. We shoved all our cans/pantry items into a lower cabinet where we also had to keep mouse traps (gross, but true), and what we couldn’t fit in there when on what was an old microwave cart. (And now we have THIS!)

Aaron purchased the living room furniture for his loft in Atlanta, so it’s BIG (and masculine) and it was shoved into a very small little living area before. And because we used to let the dogs on the furniture, I never got to have my pillows out. But new house means new rules, and the newest rule is no more dogs in our bedroom, and no dogs on the furniture. They’re adjusting. A dog park just a 10 minute walk away takes their minds off not being able to sleep on the couch.

It’s funny, too, how different the spaces can feel with furniture in them, versus how they did when they were empty or in progress. Both Aaron and I were afraid that our bedroom would feel tight once we put in our king-sized bed. Ha!

I never thought of myself as a “new house” person, but this experience has definitely changed my mind! When I think back to all of the properties we looked at and considered, I can’t think of one that we would’ve been as happy with as we are with this one. And that includes the red brick 1920s two story that made my eyes fill with tears as soon as I walked through its door.

Of course, new construction has it’s downsides. Like landscaping. Our yard still isn’t graded, and because of the timing of our closing and the climate, we still don’t have a driveway, sidewalk or grass. But those are temporary annoyances. (Though when you have dogs, it is pretty annoying!)

We’re all so glad to finally be home!

I’ve never lived anywhere this nice, and I still sort of can’t believe it. I feel like we snuck into this neighborhood, and they’re going to discover that we’re frauds and boot us out! The first night, when we walked all four dogs, I was glad it was dark so none of our neighbors could see us, the Bumpuses.

Sometimes we get good and perfect gifts from our Father. Things we don’t deserve, but he gives them anyway. And that’s what this house is. A good and perfect gift that we don’t deserve. When it was being built, I wandered around the frames and prayed that He would allow us to use it to bless others. Send us children God, however you choose to send them, to fill these rooms.

It was kind of a wonky Easter weekend, with the moving, but we made it to the 6 pm service yesterday, and Pastor Bob said that because of Easter, because of Jesus, we have a trusted guide. Someone who will direct our paths, if we acknowledge Him with our lives. That sometimes we get impatient, because things don’t happen as we’d like them to, when we’d like them. He referenced jobs and relationships, but of course I sat there and thought of children. There is nothing else in the world that is as out of hands as getting pregnant or having children. We can prevent it, yes, but we can’t make it happen: not with all the science in the world. We can help, for sure, but just ask the women whose stories I’ve read of three, four, five failed IVF cycles. It is what it is, as we say around here.

But because of Easter, because my Redeemer lives, I have a God who is for me. Who promises me hope. So I will cling to that hope and trust in the knowledge that He is FOR me.

“In all things, we know that, we are more than conquerers. You keep us by your love.” — Christy Nockels, “Healing is In Your Hands”

We closed on Wednesday! It’s ours!

A moving van arrives today from Ohio with stuff from my mom’s house—wedding gifts she’s had since my Ohio shower; furniture from my grandmother; a few other odd and ends. Tomorrow we move from our current house to the new one. I can’t wait!

Thanks for coming along for the ride. It was a great experience, and I would recommend building to anyone who’s in the market for a new house.

*Shot with a Canon 20mm 2.8  that I rented. I like it!

I recently took a spiritual growth assessment called Monvee that aims to help you learn what kind of learner you are, how you connect with God, as well as your personality type.

There are many ways people connect with God—being in his creation, Bible study, intellect, prayer, serving others. And worship. It came as no surprise to me that my pathway is worship, as many of the most memorable, defining moments in my relationship with God have occurred when I am worshiping him.

“Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. God, you are higher than any other.” Chris Tomlin, “Our God”

When I was still on my road back to Him, I would occasionally attend service at a Vineyard church in Columbus, Ohio. One Sunday they sang what I know now is a Third Day song (and I can’t even remember the song, so that should tell you that it’s not about the lyrics or the melody, it’s about the connection), and I was so overcome that I had to sit down sobbing in my chair. I was embarrassed and, honestly, scared. I wasn’t ready to give up my life—the parties, friends, relationships, habits that I knew I’d have to walk away from if I went back to Him.

“No mountain, no valley, no gain or loss we know, could keep us from Your love. No sickness, no secret, no chain is strong enough to keep us from your love. How high, how wide, no matter where I am, healing is in Your hands.” — Christy Nockels, “Healing is in Your Hands”

And I will never forget Passion ‘07, what that was like to worship with almost 20,000 other believers. An itty bitty glimpse of what Heaven will be like. During a break on one of those days, I mentioned to Lauren that when I closed my eyes, I saw all of us standing on a beach underneath a huge blue sky singing up to Him. (Probably because the ocean is the place where I feel God’s might the most. I have stood in the waves on many beaches and sang songs to him.) And then she said that she saw us before the throne, but it was so massive and mighty that even 20,000 strong, we were like a teeny, tiny finger touching the smallest, minute bit of His throne. And I see that behind my eyes now too, sometimes, millions of us on bended knee singing songs of love to our maker.

But there are drawbacks to the worship pathway that I have to be on guard against. Monvee mentioned that often worshipers can be judgmental of others who aren’t on this pathway as being less spiritual, and I have certainly been guilty of that. Minnesotans are not an exuberant bunch. They’re nice and friendly, oh yeah, but you want me to put my hands up? Uh, no. So often, I am one of only a handful of people in a 1,000+ congregation with arms raised. It used to bother me, like, don’t they know Who we’re worshiping? But as I’ve matured in my faith, I’ve learned that not everyone connects with God in the same way. (Duh, right?) So I just do what I do!

Another drawback that I have to guard against is seeking the experience and of making it about me. If you listen enough, you’ll find that there are a lot of “worship” songs that are really just boastful tunes about one’s self. So I guard against that— against making it about me. It’s about Him. Worship, at its core definition, is about making much of Him.

One of my coworker’s pathways is intellect, which I find incredibly interesting, as it was my intellect that kept me separated from Him for so long. I couldn’t get past my questions, my disbelief. But mostly, I couldn’t get past my pride. When you have the gift of knowledge, it’s easy to think you know it all and therefore don’t need anyone to tell you anything. I stumbled over that backwards knowledge for too many years, I regret to say. Because what I wasn’t getting was that. . . He gave it to me! The things that I know just because I know them? From Him. My drive to know more, learn more, understand more? A gift from Him. He gave it to me to do Kingdom work. And I wasted it for many years, thinking it was because of my own brain, my own self, my OWN smartypantsness that I knew things. Pride, pride, pride. Ugly pride.

“My God’s not dead, He’s surely alive, He’s living on the inside roaring like a lion,” David Crowder Band, “Like a Lion”

(If you think you’re on the worship pathway as well, and you’re in search of new worship music or vehicles to worship Him, I recommend going to YouTube and searching for Hillsong London, Hillsong United, Chris Tomlin or Passion: Awakening.)

Oh, we’re close now, y’all!

More pictures on Flickr.

The other day I read a blog post by a single, Christian woman asking if she was “missing something” about marriage. That so many of her married Christian friends just talked about how HARD marriage was—how much work, sacrifice, etc. it was. “Am I missing something?” she asked. “Isn’t marriage supposed to be a picture of Christ and the church. . .? Shouldn’t it be, you know, sort of great?”

It was a “duh” moment for me.

Maybe in my attempt to paint a true picture, to be sensitive to my single friends, I’ve actually done a disservice.

So let me just set the record straight—marriage is great. It’s pretty awesome, actually. To be partnered with someone who is FOR you, is a gift, a balm, a solace, a wonder. Getting to spend time with your favorite person—doing life with someone who knows you and loves you anyway—it doesn’t get better.

This past weekend Aaron and I ran a bunch of errands (moving in two weeks!) and did chores and packed boxes and argued over how many DVDs to keep, and we had a fantastic time doing it. I remember that Teri once told me that it’s important to find someone you can just have fun going to Home Depot with, because that’s a lot of what marriage is—the day to day, mundane stuff. If you can have fun doing all the chores of life with your spouse, you’re going to have a happier life, an easier marriage.

So yes, it’s work. Yes, it can be hard. But yes, it’s worth it. Yes, it’s great. Yes, it’s a miracle.

The flooring in both the laundry room and the mudroom is vinyl composite tile (VCT). It’s pretty much exactly what they put in the model, and I liked it so much that I picked the same thing for us! (The hallway bathroom floor is also VCT, only just the buff-colored tiles instead of the checkered.)

The lighting fixtures are mostly all in too.

The bathroom cabinets are stained/painted and the hardware is installed. The counters and sinks were installed this week too. Just need fixtures now!

All that’s left now is to finish the tile in the bathroom and around the fireplace, put in the remaining light fixtures and bathroom fixtures and lay the carpet! Oh, and a few other exterior things like the steps off the porch and the stone work. They’ll paint the exterior and pour our driveway and sidewalk after we close. (Probably in May sometime.)

We move in two weeks from today! I can’t believe it got here so fast. Everyone said that building a house would be stressful and crazy, but I have to say, so far (SO.FAR), it’s been pretty great. It’s such a trip to see it go up, from a hole in the ground to the framing to the drywalling to the a real actual house. It’s awesome.

I really like living in Minnesota. In fact, it may be my favorite place of residence to date.

I know.

Despite its dearth of good Mexican food and the four to five months of winter, it’s a pretty nice place to live. The people are nice. Having four distinct seasons is nice. (There is no better summer than summer in Minnesota.) The downtown is clean and there are parks and theatres and things like CHEESE CURDS. I mean, we have a lake in our backyard. It’s pretty great.

I loved Atlanta. I love it still. I grew up there, in a way. God drew me there to draw me back to him. I felt at home there. But not because of the city or the location, but because I was connected. It was the best place for me at the best time of my life. But it wasn’t my forever city. And while there was a time that I thought that it was, I realize now that it was never meant to be.

Also, it could be a frustrating place to live. The traffic. The smog. (The traffic.) The city infrastructure is falling apart. There are failing sewers and horrible schools. I mean, it’s no peach, really.

It’s different here. There’s so much beauty—rivers, lakes, green spaces, big open sky. Wide sidewalks and open fields. It speaks to the farmer’s granddaughter in me. And now that we have a church, I’m in a job that I love and I’m slowly making friends of my own here, well, I feel like Whitney Houston who can finally exhale.

And in two weeks when we move into the house that we built from the ground up (not literally, obvs), I’ll really, truly, finally, be home.

Joanne is a former Easter Coaster come Midwesterner who married in her mid-30s and had kids in quick succession. Joanne is mom to 3. Wife to 1. Friend to many. (You can follow Joanne at one of her kids’ blogs [she maintains one for each of them!] Her eldest’s is anthonyjoseph2005.blogspot.com.

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My husband and I will be married six years in July, but we always joke that it “feels like 60″! We have three kids under five and sometimes our days are long, filled with many laughs, but also many cries and whines and dramatic, tearful recriminations. Many days in the last six years, I have thought, “Really, God? THIS is my calling? My destiny?” But it is my destiny, and it is my calling. I don’t think you get to choose your vocation. When I was a single person, and my friends were getting married around me, I’d think the same thing “THIS is my calling?” I’m supposed to be single, to never have kids?” I always thought I wanted to be a wife and mother, and now that I am, I am ashamed of the amount of time I waste still questioning if I am in the right place.

My sister and I were talking the other day about how we felt about our lives. She was staying with me while my husband was away for the weekend, as I needed some help with the kids, especially around bedtime. I think she was surprised at how hard it all was, how frustrated one can get when a two year old tells you NO! for the 100th time that day, when the baby cries and cries when she is overtired, and how heartbreaking it can be when the four year old who has autism cries and cries, because he can’t tell you what he needs or wants. I told her, I am often unhappy, but I am never unsatisfied. Then later I thought I am worried, but I am not hopeless. I am tired, but I am never defeated.

I really feel like God chose my husband for me. I feel like I am married to the right person. I never doubt that I am where I am supposed to be, with him. It’s such a comfort to me, as everything else around me might be blowing up (or feeling like that, anyway), that I will always be married to him.

I know it can sound silly in the secular world, but I am really trying to have my marriage be a reflection of the Holy Family. I try and think about Mary and Joseph and how many doubts they must have had, before Jesus was born and after. I wonder, did Mary get annoyed by Joseph not turning his socks right side out before he put them in the laundry? ( I don’t think so, and not just because they didn’t have socks or washing machines.) When I am annoyed with whatever transgression I think my husband has committed (usually it’s of the laundry persuasion), I try and think about my wedding vows. I think that I promised to love and cherish FOREVER. I didn’t promise to love and cherish when times were good, or when I wasn’t so tired, I promised to love and cherish FOREVER.

Our son Anthony has autism, and although we have had some dark moments, like when he was first diagnosed, and right before he was first diagnosed, our life with him is happy. Some quote the rate of divorce among parents of children with autism as being as high as 80 percent, which I just. . .I can’t believe it. This article quotes Jenny McCarthy, the mother of an (allegedly) autistic son, from an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2007. She says:

“I felt very alone in my marriage.” Jenny says her husband dealt with his pain by staying away, even when Evan was in the hospital. “He never sat down and said, ‘What did you find out on Google?’” she says. “There was never that connection of wanting to know and being there.”

With his child? He never wanted to know or be there? I think that Jenny McCarthy and her husband may have had bigger problems than just the fact that their son had autism.

I remember a few years ago, someone asked me for advice about marriage. “Pick someone good”, I told her, and I meant it. Of course you should be kind, and say please and thank you and don’t go to bed mad, and all of that. But really, the best advice you can get is to pick someone good. And if you are a person who believes in God, and who believes that God loves you and wants the best for you, let God pick someone good for you.