Tag: faith

2025: Takeaways from my Journey to Owning My First Home!

Abcarrel

Its that time again, where we reflect on the past year and look forward to the new one. When I look back on 2025, the event that stands out the most is the purchase of my first home in July. I put nearly all my time, energy and money into this new house. As a first time home owner, everything was new and difficult. I was stretched physically, emotionally and financially like never before. If you asked me a year ago if I would ever buy a fixer upper, I would have said no way with absolute certainty. I wasn’t even sure a new home would be a right fit for me as a single mom working full time and busy with kids activities. Yet, that two bedroom 1 bathroom condo kept getting smaller and smaller, and my heart kept thinking about the “what ifs’ of the future. So I started the journey.

The story of getting this new house is definitely a God story. I started casually looking for a house in May. I was on a month to month lease and wanted to see what was out there. I did not have any expectations or a timeline. My generous ex-mother-in-law was my realtor and we signed a contract through January. She told me to make a list and prioritize the most important things in my search. #1 was immediately a second bathroom! I was done with sharing a bathroom with two boys! Yet as I looked at houses, I quickly realized an outdoor space that could be considered peaceful quickly shot to the top of my list. I wanted a place that I could drink my coffee, journal, read and pray outside without distractions. On a Wednesday night I literally said aloud that I was not asking God for a lake view because that would be greedy and impossible, but I just needed a place that gave me some peace and felt like a sanctuary for me. Just a few hours later, a friend of mine texted that the house across the street from her would be going on the market. Go figure, this house is located right on a lake. I quickly dismissed it assuming it would be out of my price range, but was open to exploring the option. Two days later, I was touring the house and three days later I was putting an offer on it, all before it ever hit the market! Apparently it wasn’t too greedy or impossible to ask God for.

Closing day was just the beginning of our new adventure. From July 2nd through September 6th, I spent nearly every day and night working on this house. I canceled all plans and focused on this massive project. I had a village of people come around me, tearing up carpets, tearing down ceilings, installing insulation, building walls, laying new flooring, painting every room in the house and more! I used power tools I never knew existed, gained new scars, learned just how itchy insulation really is, and stretched muscles that hadn’t been stretched before. Yet here I am at the end of the year sitting in a beautiful home overlooking a lake and taking in the sanctuary I was both given and worked so hard for. As I reflect here are some of my takeaways I learned this year in the journey to homeownership.

  1. I can choose to do hard things.- For my entire adult life, I have been forced to do hard things without any consent on my part. This was a time where I got to choose to do the hard thing and count the cost. I wanted to give up at times, but I knew it would be worth it. Choosing to do hard things is valuable for an abundant life.
  2. Impossible things can be made possible. – Sometimes God shows up to make you remember that he is sovereign over all things and that he does give good gifts even to those whose faith is small or not even there at all.
  3. Beauty can come from the worst of situations. – For over a decade, I have witnessed God doing this in my personal life. However, this was the culmination and physical representation of transformation of a house that was falling apart turning into a home I am proud of. A true metaphor of how God shows up in our lives and world making all things new.
  4. I can do hard things, but not alone. – This project was bigger than I could have ever managed. It took a village of people with different skillsets to come together and make this happen. From coworkers, neighbors, family, friends, students and even some strangers coming together, I was given the gift of community support and was so overwhelmed with the generosity of others.

As I finish 2025, sitting by my fireplace overlooking the lake as snow falls down, I am feeling an immense amount of gratitude. How did this even happen? God has let so many of prayers go unanswered over the years. For some reason, he chose to allow this one to be fulfilled. I may not understand it, but I will praise Him for it. This house represents so much to me. So far we have already created memories of multiple nights sitting around a bonfire with friends, kayaking and paddleboarding, lake beach days, sleepovers with the kids friends and cousins, hosting dinners, fall hikes, and more. Looking to 2026, I pray that this house not only serves as a sanctuary for me and my family, but for others as well. May it be a place where peace is felt in the midst of the chaos of the word around us. So if you are reading this and you need some peace, you are officially invited.

  • Fall is beautiful here
  • first snow at our new house

My Word of the Year

Abcarrel

The past few years I have gotten on the bandwagon of choosing a “word of the year”. In 2023, I chose the word “courage” and in fact that year I did many courageous things like apply for a new job, move into my own place, and graduate with my masters degree. Last January as I was praying for the the right word, the word that kept coming up was TRUST. Trust is one of my least favorite words. Needless to say after all I have gone through, trust does not come easy for me. Yet that word kept coming at me and despite me fighting against it, it seemed like God wanted to teach me something about trust in 2024. So I declared it my journal and it was offical.

The entire year I wrestled with this word trying to figure out how exactly I was supposed to embrace it. I started the new year off dating someone new. He was the first person in a long time that I was genuinely excited about. Handsome, local, established in his job, his faith was important to him, a recent widower with young kids. True potential was upon me! However, my trust issues are gargantuan in the area of dating, and so I obviously thought God was pushing me to take down those walls and begin to trust more. After 3 months dating, I was feeling like this could finally be something special, yet without any warning or conversations, he ended it all in a quick text message. Poof, in one moment all that hope and trust I had cautiously allowed to seep in just seemed ridiculous, like a cruel joke I fell for.

A few months later, I began dating someone else. Another handsome local Christian man who was a very active father in his kids lives. Should I try this trusting concept again? That must be why I was given this word trust right? Well like clockwork, 3 months into dating and without any warnings another break up text came my way. Also can we all acknowledge that grown men in their 30’s and 40’s should not be breaking up with women via text message?

Well after that failed relationship, I started to figure that trusting men was not the reason that God put that word on my heart for the year. So where did this word trust come into play for my year. Of course, the obvious answer that you might be thinking is that I was supposed to be trusting God. Yet, God and I have wrestled over the last decade or more of my life with what it truly means to trust Him. I have strong opinions about using that phrase as a way to expect all good things will happen and your circumstances will change. Too many times in my Christian life, I have heard people say things like ” Trust God, He can heal. Trust God, He will protect you. Trust God, He will bring the perfect man for you when you least expect it. Trust God, He will save your marriage. Trust God, He will get you that job. Trust God, he will bring you a rainbow baby.” The list goes on, all with good intentions, but with lack of any true biblical guarantees. Trusting God to make our lives great and get rid of any difficult circumstances is far from biblical. We can pray with all our might for these things, and we should, but there’s no promises that if we trust God enough we will get what we want.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in trusting God, and I have written about it multiple times before. Please check previous blogs… So I have wrestled enough with this phrase, that I genuinely knew that this word trust wasn’t just about God wanting me to trust Him more in 2024. I already trusted that He is always working and redeeming in my life. I already trusted that He is good on His promise to never leave or forsake me in any circumstance. I already trusted that He is near to the broken hearted. I already trusted that He is the way the truth and the life. So of course there is always room to grow in this area, I just knew that wasn’t the message I was supposed to be leaning into in this moment.

On November 13th I journaled that I still had no idea why trust was given to me as my word of the year. The next day, I was at my monthly courageous women’s support group discussing the changes that were coming ahead for me in 2025 and all the fears I have about it. I was worried that I would make decisions that weren’t wise or best for our family. I was worried that I didn’t know what I was doing in so many areas. Then my very wise friend Bekah affirmed she had felt all the same things regarding her divorce and how her family helped her stay strong and trust her instincts. As she was talking, it was like I had a full revelation moment and the scales had been removed from my eyes. “I don’t trust myself! This year has been all about learning to trust myself!” Everything seemed to fall into place for me in that moment.

I took major leaps in dating this year. I wasn’t supposed to learn to trust men, but I had learned to trust myself about what I want and need in a relationship. I had learned to listen to that inner voice when I felt uncomfortable instead of just calling myself crazy. When after over a decade of suffering from anxiety and “trusting God” to heal me”, I finally made an appointment and tried medication for the first time this summer, changing my life significantly. I finally trusted myself and realized that I needed to invest in my mental health. When I went to the southern border in October to learn about the migrant crisis, I learned to trust myself in knowing what is important to me and how my faith should take action no matter how “controversial” it may look to others. At work last year, I gained so many new skills and learned to trust that I am competent and capable in my position. In parenting, I have learned to trust myself in knowing what’s best for my kids and advocating for them when I need to. The list could go on, but I was finally able to make the connections for all the ways I had learned to trust myself this year.

I have not always been able to see the good in trusting myself. I was taught to doubt if anything inside of me was trustworthy at all. I walk into 2025 learning to trust the ways that I have grown over the last year. I am still trying to decipher what I want to focus on as my new word for the new year, but I sure as heck hope it doesn’t take me until November to figure out what it means ! (and if single handsome local man just happens to be the reason for one of those words, I won’t complain)