An Unexpected Gift

An Unexpected Gift

There is a sense of detachment—almost timelessness—about our new homeplace in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin. I used to have stress dreams about Ebola, but now I have stress dreams about getting my wash in off the line before it snows.

My husband has also commented on this shift. Once addicted to the news, he no longer keeps track of the headlines. I am aware that some of this head-in-the-snow oblivion might be unhealthy, but we are so focused on our day-to-day existence that we have lost touch with larger world events.

Will the sun shine long enough to warm the radiant floor heating, so that my socks grow damp with the condensation covering the floor like a glossy sheen? Will my husband get venison on his hunt in the morning? Do we have enough kindling stockpiled to last us until the end of the week?

Despite numerous projects arising around the house and farm, our stress level remains low . . . almost nonexistent. It causes me to wonder if God didn’t intend for us to be so plugged into the world’s daily woes but to instead focus on our own small world around us.

If everyone shifted their gazes from their computer monitors, iPhones, and TV screens and instead looked around at the needs of the community around them, our world would be a different—possibly better—place, devoid of the allure of hard-bitten news.

Yesterday, Black Friday, I was especially aware of the wonder of the simple life. While consumerism was heralded across the nation, my toddler daughter and I bundled up and tromped out into the snow.

The sky was a brilliant, wind-swept clear that caused you to squint against the glittering backdrop of snow covering the striped traces of cornfields. Taking the serrated knife I’d wrapped with a kitchen towel, I cut down pine boughs and split branches of honeysuckle berry.

My daughter and I carried our treasures back to the house—she wanting to venture into the “deep” six inches of snow and then back onto the plowed driveway, so our steps looked like those made by inebriated men.

Inside, we shed our layers, put on Christmas music, and sipped peppermint tea while we turned the boughs and branches into holiday bouquets to decorate the house.

It was such a beautiful, priceless moment that I felt the joy of it to my fingertips. I realized then that I came here to the Driftless Region because I knew it was one of my husband’s lifelong dreams, and yet now that I am here, I am finding that a foreign land is already beginning to feel like home.

Have you ever found that something you were bracing yourself for actually became an unexpected gift?