Of God, Mountains, and How I Met My Husband, Part Third

I’ve told you about my mountain — that seeming impossible situation in my life, of moving to the wilderness in my teens and wondering how I’d ever meet any eligible young men. I also told you the beginning of how God began to move that mountain, pebble by pebble. Today I’m gonna add a bit more drama (or, as it may turn out, lack of drama) and tell you about a large cliff on the side of my mountain – a sheer, nearly un-scalable rock face we’re gonna call “The Wall”. The shadow of this Wall loomed threateningly over my future love life, filling the path with stumbling blocks, and the fissures with fear:

I was shy, people.

From a young age, painfully so. As I matured and my parents endeavored to teach me social skills, I learned to shake hands, make eye contact, even (oh, agony) introduce myself. By the time I was in my teens, it looked like I was over my shyness and well adjusted. But inside I was a twisted bunch of nerves, full of fear that I looked wrong, talked wrong, and wouldn’t be accepted. In groups or with anyone but close family and friends, I was the one on the outside, quietly looking in, watching, and hoping no one expected me to say anything.

{Those who know me now will probably think that this is where I decided to insert a bit of fiction to make my story better, for nowadays I’m usually the one in the center of the group, talking the loudest! I’m quite a different person now, and it had a lot to do with this journey}

That’s why when our new friend, Tom, invited us to visit his Church, I was content to stay home and play dolls and feed chickens.

OK, it wasn’t that bad. I guess I would have liked to go, a little bit. But it was my turn to babysit.

The chickens, not the dolls.

You see, just about a year into our homestead experience, despite our attempts to plan and save, our savings were running low, and though we still did not feel quite ready (the house wasn’t done, we didn’t have a driveway or any outbuildings), it was time to jump into some entrepreneurial endeavors. Having a close friend who knew Joel Salatin, we were introduced to the idea of raising grass-fed chickens. Two-thirds of our land was open meadow, and chickens didn’t seem like rocket science, so we dove in. My dad and brothers spent some time at Polyface farm and then came back to the homestead to turn it into a chicken farm.

That’s a story in itself right there, let me tell you. But for the sake of this story, I’ll skip over that to the summer I was 15, and the brooder house was full of 200 little peeping chicks who, at just a week old, needed almost hourly attention. The propane heater must be checked, feed trays filled, waterers unclogged, temperature adjusted — whenever my family went anywhere during brooding season, someone had to stay home with the chicks. This Sunday it was my turn.

And the thing was — I was OK with that. See, in addition to being shy and fearful of meeting new people, I also didn’t really care about growing up. Maybe I was afraid of that, too, and figured if I pretended I was younger it would delay the process? Who knows, but that Sunday, as my family piled into the suburban and spun through the mud down the driveway, leaving me alone in the middle of 150 acres for the whole day, I was giddy inside.


This meant I had the dollhouse all to myself.

All day, while my family met new friends and made pivotal connections with people that would bring us closer to meeting my future husband, I was sitting on my sister’s bed, playing happily with her dollhouse in between runs to the brooder to check on the chicks.

And STILL my God was able to find a man for me, and — eventually– get us to talk to each other, and then — but I’m getting ahead of myself. Next time I’ll tell you about the first time I set eyes on my future husband…