Have you ever had that stirring in your heart and you knew it came from God? You knew with every bit of belief that He was calling you to make a move…… but you didn’t do anything because you were too scared?

Or maybe you wanted to do something about it but the path wasn’t clear and you were a little confused?

Another option is you actually did everything YOU thought He was telling you to do, but in reality that’s not what He was calling you to do at all!

Let me tell you I’m a pro and getting it all wrong, being too scared, or being so confused about what He was calling me to do!

I wanted to share how we’ve wound up small house living……. A year and a half ago I read an article posted about a family who was putting their tiny home and homestead up as prize for an essay contest. As I sat in my living room surrounded by all my kids, in my huge home that I didn’t own, and that was quite honestly a mess 90% of the time; I started to feel it. God was calling me to start preparing my mind for tiny house living.

Months went by and I just kept praying we’d be in the tiny house someday. We finally made it to their last open house at the beginning of October and I was able to take the kids to it only by the luck of all of our soccer games getting rained out. The kids and I instantly fell in love the the property, the kids loved the house, the animals, the garden, and the pond! I thought I knew that this was God’s plan for us. The contest went until middle of October and I of course waited until the last possible moment to write my essay. I was worried about the contest entry fee since it was $100, but my mom loaned me the money. So on the very last day of the contest I had planned on dropping my entry off at the post office after getting the youngest two kiddos from school.

As I was pulling out of the school entrance my car died! The kids and I were able to push it across the street and down to my cousins house who lived right across from the school.

After a few trial and error situations it was determined that my alternator had gone bad! Guess how much it cost? I’m sure you probably guessed……. just shy of $100. My other cousin was able to put go purchase the new alternator and put it in for me in just a couple of hours. I was so grateful to her and her amazing ability to work on my car, but I was also so sad that I didn’t get to enter the contest and that I had to “waste” my entry fee money on new alternator. I know it may seem silly to some, but thinking God had a plan for your life and feeling like you both were on the same path, only to find out you weren’t, was extremely disheartening.

A few days passed before I was able to accept the fact that winning the tiny house contest was obviously not God’s plan for me and the kids. But I didn’t give up on the idea of tiny house living completely, instead I just shifted my thinking to the future and how I could eventually make our own tiny home.

This is where we fast forward a few more weeks, last year in early November we discovered a mold issue in our home and made decision to stay with my mom for a few weeks until a plan could be in place to get it fixed and we could return home. With each day that went by and the more we settled into a routine with my mom the more I realized this is what God was preparing me for; even though it took a few months for me to realize we wouldn’t be returning to our home and that my moms house would be our home for the next 2 years.

My moms house is about 900 sq, so not exactly “tiny house living” but with me, my mom, 5 kids, 2 cats, a dog, and a lizard I’d definitely say we a practicing “small house living”.

We’ve been here almost a year and I can’t believe how much has changed….. physically, emotionally, mentally! We’ve had some pretty big things happen to our family this past year and most of them have been so big that our lives will never ever be the same. We gave up so much to follow God’s plan for us and I wouldn’t change it for anything!!

While we are living somewhat unconventional to today’s standards, we are still living comfortably and way above our means. I know it’s weird to a lot people that my kids don’t have their own rooms and we don’t have extra space, but still some how we still have rooms with unused things and more clothes than anyone should have; these are things that we are constantly going through and we are always reevaluating what we NEED to keep verses what we WANT to keep.

I’m so grateful that we stumbled upon the tiny house contest last March and so grateful for the change that it created in my life. I’m so grateful that my car broke down, preventing me from entering the contest, and made me change my thinking. Our hearts and minds are continually being renewed by God’s love and the more we let go of both physically and emotionally the closer we are getting to Him and His plan for us! ❤️