What? We are Moving Again?

My husband and I were very settled into retirement life on our first ever acre of land. He built multiple outbuildings, remodeled ones that were already there, and I grew a large garden and cared for goats and chickens. We had everything as we wanted it. We lived there for four years when trouble moved in next door.

I’m not talking about annoying neighbors but law-breaking neighbors who did not care how much they encroached on our peace. We tried, we truly did, to be nice. We handled it on our own, trying to discuss it with them, hoping the neighbors would want peace, also.

Nope. It was their way or nothing. They stole from us. They played music so loud after midnight, it shook our house windows. They had a rat infestation and mold that smelled awful near my goat pen. The rats began coming over and getting into my hay barn.

We lived with this for five years, until we decided to put our house up for sale. Long story short, we found out our neighbor was trying to push us out all along. When they discovered our asking price for our property, they were livid. And, I won’t tell you what they said to my realtor.

It was not nice. But it did answer so many questions as to why they didn’t care about being kind neighbors.

Our realtor contract expired. We thought we’d maybe just stay. We loved our little acre. But when the sign came down and another did not go up, our lives were threatened by our neighbors.

My husband said, “We are out of here.”

I agreed.

We listed with a new realtor and sold the house within two months. We lived in a temporary home for nine months before we bought another acre we felt would suit us. This new home is on the coast. The old one had over 100 degree heat in the summers. We got to where the heat bothered us.

On our new acre our house is huge, and my husband finally has a shop. A real shop. I have a greenhouse, and all around us are trees. Green, green trees. Trees that stay green all year round.

The air is cleaner here. And we are grateful the only two neighbors we have are peaceful people.

We did not have these wonderful advantages on our old acre.

It was a challenging year and a half when we began our journey to sell our previous acre. We were older. Packing and moving took a team of people for we could not do this by ourselves.

Worst of all, we grieved leaving our home. But, my friends and even strangers, when we talked about being forced off of our acre, said we would find a new home which was better than the one before.

I didn’t believe them.

Now I do!

As we are settling in, we thank God for the acre He has given to us.

And I wonder. If my husband and I had been revengeful to our bad neighbors, would God have blessed us with better?

I think not!