Home A Bit Longer 05/06 – 6/15/23

Countryside Campground, Mogadore, Ohio

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. ~ Matthew 5:13 Jesus turns His focus to His followers, those who believe in Him. Did you notice that He says, “You ARE”, rather than you can be, or should be, or will be? He expects those who love Him to be salt. So how are we salt? Salt can be either a good or a bad thing. It’s a preservative. It enhances the flavor of food. According to Harvard University, “The human body requires a small amount of sodium to conduct nerve impulses, contract and relax muscles, and maintain the proper balance of water and minerals. It is estimated that we need about 500 mg of sodium daily for these vital functions.” It’s a necessary mineral. These are the good things God created salt for. But if it loses its usefulness, it can’t be fixed. It gets thrown out. The Romans used salt to destroy a conquered people. They would sow it into the ground and ruin the land so nothing would grow. We’ve witnessed this in the ‘tree boneyards’ we’ve come across on our travels, where hurricanes or erosion have allowed the ocean to creep in. The salty water destroys the trees and any other foliage. Jesus expects us to be salt. He expects our lives to reflect His own, and be useful and good in the lives of those we come in contact with.

I hardly know where to begin. Our lives quickly became a whirlwind of activity after we arrived back in Ohio. Once we arrived home, we began house-hunting in earnest. Surprised?

This is something we (mostly I) have talked about for several months now. We came home with the thought that we’d look around a bit, but if the perfect place didn’t appear, we’d wait. We (mostly Blaine) weren’t desperate for a house yet. He still has a lifetime of full-timing in him, but I felt a strong pull to set up a permanent place – to entertain, to have family and friends over, to spread out, to serve the Lord. And so, I’ve been praying for a few very specific qualifications – the perfect house at the perfect price in the perfect location with a place to park the motorhome on the property. Not much to ask for from my Father. 😊

Originally, we thought condo because we really didn’t want all the responsibilities that come with homeownership, but the price of a condo, the exorbitant HOA fees, the storage fees for the motorhome, and the discovery that those HOA fees really covered nothing except mowing a tiny patch of grass, turned us toward a house instead.

We looked at four with the agent who sold our previous home as well as Blaine’s parents’. Tyson Hartzler at Keller Williams is a fantastic agent who listens to what you want and really knows his business. All the houses we looked at were empty which seemed weird to us. And then, one day, Blaine ran across a new listing online, called Tyson and said, “We don’t know the area. Is it worth looking at?” “Yes! Let’s go right now!” It was about 7pm. So off we went, met Tyson and his three young sons (along with his pontoon boat 😊) and looked at the empty house. Almost immediately Blaine and I felt comfortable with it and we made an offer on the spot. Tyson worked his magic and suddenly, we were homeowners again!

And our gracious Heavenly Father saw fit to bless us by meeting every request, with a minor shift in location. We’re about 20 minutes south of our ideal, but He knows what He’s doing. We can’t wait to see what He has in store for us!

There were lots of other things going on – like both of us needing oral surgery almost as soon as we arrived in town. If you’d take a look at our May calendar, you’d see something in every single block!

Then there were family gatherings of one sort or another – graduation, birthday, brother and sister in town, grandkids spending time with Gma & Gpa, friends . . . .

And the house took up an abundance of time once that settled on June 15^th! But I’ll leave that for the next post.

For now, enjoy the pictures!