Homelessness

Overall, this blog has been mostly about my new family and I'm giving it a break.

I wanted to announce that I'm currently homeless. This isn't a distress call and it most certainly isn't bragging. Ashley and I are in the process of purchasing a home in the Huntsville area and it has been an exhausting process. We reached an agreement with our seller in early June and we are still trying to close on the house. Hopefully that will happen sometime this week but there is no guarantee of that at the rate we have been going. We were supposed to close today but that fell through so we're back to working on getting things approved again.

I say all of that to say that we are currently a homeless family. I announce this because it has given me a unique opportunity to look at just how blessed my new family and me are. We have not spent a single night in a hotel since Ashley sold her house in Missouri City earlier this month. Despite Ashley not really having access to her own kitchen, we have eaten multiple home cooked meals. We continuously have offers from people who barely know us wanting us to know that they will offer a place to stay, meal to eat, or even just a time to relax by babysitting the girls. We have also managed to go on a vacation and a vacation within a vacation, have a wedding shower, an engagement party, and I have been to two different church camps with my teens.

I have also been intrigued and inspired by the way the first christians lived their lives. None of them considered anything to be actually theirs. If someone was homeless, someone else opened up their home. If someone was hungry, someone else shared some of their meal. If someone was naked, someone else offered some of theirs clothes. I have grown up in a mostly materialistic world. I hear the word "mine" more than most, but over the last couple of months, I haven't really heard anyone say that. All my family and me have witnessed is openness, open doors, open homes, open arms.

Over the last couple of months, I have had no choice but to rely on my church family. Most people will refer to their home church as their church family. I honestly can't bring myself to do that because if I call the Huntsville church my church family then I feel like I'm not calling the Impact church my church family. I could say the same for Berry's Chapel, the church I grew up at. I have relied and fallen back on people from about 4 different churches during this time.

Even though Ashley and I have been frustrated beyond belief, I have to say that I go to sleep tonight in a cabin bunk feeling blessed. There is a roof over mine and my family's heads tonight. We know that we will be eating breakfast in the morning. Audrey will be going to tennis camp. Addison will play with 1000000000 toys and watch Good Luck Charlie. Ashley will continue on her quest writing thank you notes and I will spend some solid time with the teens and kids at camp.

Hopefully we'll be moving into a new home by this coming Saturday. Hopefully we'll move into a home of our own at some point. Until then, I have every intention of not just going to church, but being the church and for the time being, the church is watching over me and my family and I am forever grateful.