So Grateful for 2022!

Happy New Year, friends!  

I cannot believe that we have started a new year!  I’m very much looking forward to the coming year, but I first wanted to pause and share with you the reasons I am so GRATEFUL for 2022.

Believe it or not, 2022 started off with us putting our house on the market!  It wasn’t anything we had planned, but we started throwing out the idea during Christmas because the housing market was AMAZING in our area.  We always thought we would live in our Brentwood, Tn home until the kids graduated high school, but when we decided to homeschool our youngest three in 2021, that changed everything.   We know longer had to stay in our home to stay in a good school district.  So we decided to sell!

The first two weeks of January 2022 was full of us trying to finish projects around the house to get it ready to put on the market.  When we finally listed it “for sale by owner,” we were blown away with the offers, and it sold quickly!  

However, little did we know that something very scary was about to happen…

Luke had a brain bleed (a ruptured AVM) and had to have major brain surgery to remove it.  (Whenever I share about this now, people always ask if he was vaccinated because of all the adverse reactions to the v@ccine, mainly being blood clots.  He was not and is not.  His brain bleed had nothing to do with the C*vid v@ccine.)

This was such a scary time for our family, especially Luke.  It was so unexpected, and the outcome was so unknown.  But we are very thankful to the Lord for being with us every step of the way, regardless of the outcome.   It’s moments like these that open our eyes to what matters most in life, and that is our relationship with Jesus and loving on those around us.  

The doctors were able to successfully remove the blood and cluster of viens (AVM,) that had ruptured from Luke’s brain, and he recovered from both surgeries extremely quick. This experience definitely grew our family even closer together, but we are thankful to have it all behind us. 

Remember, we had just sold our home before we realized Luke would have to have brain surgery, so we actually closed on our house only two days after Luke got out of the hospital!  It was a crazy, stressful time!

Thankfully, the new home owners were from California and did not need to move into our house until later in the year.  This gave us some time to look for land outside of Nashville and still live in our house til the end of June.

The biggest blessing of 2022 came shortly after selling our house when we bought land about 45 minutes outside of Nashville in Dickson, Tn!  I will NEVER be able to express in words what the Lord has done in our hearts and minds by leading us to our new property that we call Still Waters.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.  

He makes me lie down in green pastures.  

He leads me beside the Still Waters.

He restores my soul.

Psalm 23: 1-3

When I say that the Lord has truly “restored our souls” since we moved out to our new land would be the understatement of the year.  Like seriously…I will never be able to explain the miracle this land has been for our entire family!

Let’s be honest, ever since 2020, the world has been pretty crazy.  And I believe ALL of us have had weary souls over everything we have seen going on in the world.  We all have handled it differently, but for our family, stepping back from the world a little, doing things our way and making choices that are best for our family, even if it looks different than what others are doing…has brought PURE REFRESHMENT to our souls!

We bought 8 1/2 acres of land with a large pond with the hopes to build a house on top of the hill.  We spent every single weekend of the Spring going out to the land and fishing, riding our ATV, making campfires with friends, and dreaming of all we wanted to do on our land.

We made some of the best memories we could every ask for, and continue to do so.  And the Peace that filled our hearts as we spend time in the Lord’s beautiful creation is beyond description.  

Over the past year. Cy and Adam built a new coop for our chickens…

We also built a little shed down by the pond for our fishing equipment, but then Jonathan decided he wanted to live in it! haha!  So we made it a little bigger and added a front porch to.  Currently, we are adding on a bedroom and bathroom to this little home.  I’ll share more of that in the future.

AND…we bought an RV to renovate and live in while we built a house…

Which would have been the hardest thing in the world to do with a family of seven, haha!  So the Lord knew better, and a few weeks before we were supposed to move out of our Brentwood home and into our RV, the house at the top of our property went up for sale, and WE BOUGHT IT!

The house sits on land that use to originally be a part of our land, and it overlooks our pond, so it just makes sense that we bought it for our future.  This is the view of the back of the house from our pond…

So now, we have this home which makes our total property almost 10 acres, and we absolutely love it!  The house is only 1200 sq ft, and Cy and I, Adam, Eli, and Sania live in it.  Jonathan lives in the “pond house” we built, and now Luke lives in the renovated RV at the top of the hill. 

Which brings up another reason I am so thankful for 2022.  Luke, who had been living in Los Angeles for almost two years, officially moved back to Tennessee with us this summer, and my heart could not be more happy!!  Nothing makes a mama happier than to see her kiddos happy, and I can truly say that Still Waters has blessed every member of our family. 

We all feel like we have kind of gone back to our “roots.”  Dickson County reminds us so much of the county we use to live in in Kentucky, and the county that our Wilmore house is in.  Dickson just feels more like us…more like our kind of people. 

Jonathan has written several songs inspired by our move, one of which is BLUE COLLAR that came out in October.  The video was filmed in Dickson County, which I love so much!…

 

He loves the simplicity of living at Still Waters, and how it gives him a break from the city life of Nashville.  

Luke is thriving being back home in Tennessee!  He is doing free lance photography and videography, and lives in the our renovated RV up on the hill.  He has always loved fishing and being in the outdoors, so living on our 10 acres has been so good for his soul as well. 

Eli and Luke also love the outdoors…well, all my boys do!  haha!  They love helping Cy build things around the property and fishing at our pond.  

And Sania!…y’all, it has been so fun to see how much she has enjoyed our new land…especially our chickens! She is their main caretaker making sure they have food and water.  She walks up the hill every single morning to let the chickens out to free range, and she checks for eggs several times throughout the day.  

And if she is not checking on the chickens, she is fishing in the pond (except it’s a little to cold to fish right now.). She’s the best fisherman in the family!  

I could go on and on and on about how much we love Still Waters!  In a world that has gone crazy, Still Waters is truly a place that restores our soul.  I am forever Grateful to the Lord for leading us here.  I’m so thankful for the slower pace of life we feel here.  My cup runneth over…

We have no idea what 2023 will hold for our family this year, but knowing that we get to call Still Waters our home makes my heart feel good.  And above all, knowing that Jesus is holding my world in His hands gives me a Peace that passes all understanding.  

Because He lives
I can face tomorrow
Because He lives
All fear is gone
Because I know
He holds the future
And life is worth the living
Just because He lives!

THANK YOU ALL for being with us another year here on the blog.  Your friendship here means the world to me!  I look forward to another year with you!  

May the Lord bless you and keep you. 

xoxo

Traci