Gratitude and Goodbyes

We are moving.

This little homestead in rural North Carolina was a dilapidated mess when we first bought it a little over three years ago. This sweet, little place has taught us big lessons about redemption.

I'm so thankful for our time here.

It has been so sweet and also so hard.

This brick, ranch-style home was a mess when we first made a bid on it. The yard was trashed and infested with ticks and snakes. The interior of the home was out-dated, smelled funny, and had been neglected of love and care.

The Black Angus cow pasture that stood in front of this little home, and the pond view out back were stunning though. The field across the pond rolled up towards the horizon and was often filled with hay bales twice my height.

We went for it! We gutted the place, moved in and the renovations have continued since that day. I bought baby, chirping chicks and we planted a raised-cedar bed garden; I learned how to can vegetables, and I got into the sourdough-bread-making scene. I taught our daughter school at the big, wooden table in the huge carport-turned-screened-in porch that always greeted us with a delightful, gentle breeze. We've hosted parties and family Thanksgiving's here. We've spent hours around the large dining table sipping tea with friends who are walking through divorce and cancer and overseas moves.

And we are leaving it all now. Why?

I ask the same thing most mornings as I watch the pink and orange sunrise greet me over the field that lies to the left of our house, cupping my warm mug of coffee between my hands. But I know why, deep down I know that our "why" is bigger than our desire to stay.

Just because something is loved and you are grateful for it, doesn't mean it is a season that is meant to last forever. Endings are just that, they are simply endings. One ending is always a new beginning. And when something ends, even a good thing, it can often be because there is a new season inviting you to a different and new beginning.

And that's ok. Seasons are real.

Summer doesn't end because it's bad. Summer simply ends because it's time for autumn now.

Life is cyclical. We have permission to make changes just as the seasons do. We can choose to pivot while also being sincerely full of gratitude and sentiment for the season that's ending. That's where I am.

When we bought this little home that we planned to redeem, we had hopes of potentially buying the beautiful 15 acres surrounding it. Rather than that happening, it was sub-divided and new homes emerged in what was previously rolling, green pastures filled with swaying tall, breezy grasses, mama and baby deer grazing contentedly nearly every morning, and open, gently sloping pastures surrounding us.

That's the stunning setting we bought. This little home was in a setting that was dreamy to us, and that setting has now changed.

Change is ok. Change is just change. Life is full of pivots.

Secondly, we got the joy and tears of a true, whole-house and 2-acre property fixer-upper. I've learned so much.

I now know how to run a wood-burning stove, start a fire with different types of kindling, raise baby chicks into healthy chickens, and stencil a concrete floor.

I now know the song of the guinea hen, what birds are predators, how ticks and rats and snakes have a very close ecological connection, and that gardens will not thrive with too much manure in them.

I now know the smell of a skunk's ink (and will know that smell forever lol), what duck-weed looks like, the satisfaction of manual labor, and how Camelias bloom and fade very quickly in the spring.

I now know the peace of 100-year-old hardwood trees waving at you in the breeze, the habits of black-angus cows that graze the pasture outside of my front, kitchen window, how a well system operates, and how it takes 2 full seasons for grape vines and apple trees to produce leaves.

I now know the consistency of underground temperatures in a basement and cellar, how you have to blanch tomatoes before your quarter and freeze them for the winter, and the value and productivity of living life intentionally slow.

I have learned so much out here.

I've loved this season in so many ways. But it has come with a cost. A cost of time and money. With the combination of the setting changing and the intention we had of moving to Zambia a year ago, these two factors have changed our priorities.

Change is ok. I'm not afraid of change.

When you think you are moving to the bush of another country to serve the Lord there, in our case it was Zambia, you lose "roots" in the spot that you are. That happened to us. Our homestead dream became less valuable to us.

Now, we are moving to a condo-style home in the city. It's lovely and new and very different than here. Freedom lies on the horizon -- freedom of time, freedom of resources. There will be a new freedom to leave whenever we feel led, whether permanently or short-term to travel over the big pond. There will be freedom to serve on a Saturday instead of work on the homestead.

"Earth is short, Heaven is long" has become the new mantra of our home.

-Jennifer Rothschild

Time may be our greatest asset in this short life. We felt the Lord asking us, "How are you using it?" We want to tell Him, serving you, Lord, with our whole hearts. We know His favor rests on us completely because of the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, but we want to be more intentional because we know our time is short.

Earth is short, Heaven is long.

For these reasons, our full hearts are thanking Him for the beautiful 3 year and 2 month season we have had here on Epps Clark Rd. We are walking into this next season ready to embrace the change with open hearts.

"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Psalm 90:12

We are excited, we are sentimental, we are relieved, we are sad, we are hopeful. But mostly, we are at peace.

Change is ok.

We thank this little homestead for all it's taught us and the ways it's nurtured and grown us, and we hand it off to the next owners with love and gratitude.

A final thought as I close out this time of personal reflection with my fingers ferocious at the keyboard ...There is joy in the pivoting. Do you find that same thing to be true in your experiences?

I am finding that there is deep contentment in the practice of remembering that this world, our wood and brick-built homes, and all that fills them, are temporary this side of Heaven. There is a richness in the exercise of pondering how our people are really what makes home home. There is a deep joy in fighting to be loose-rooted to material things.

"Only one life, twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." -C.T. Studd

I'm so grateful for this place, and I'm excited about this next season...all at the same time.