I’ve seen a lot of miracles in my life. Maybe it’s my way of looking at the world. Maybe I truly have seen a lot of amazing things. I one time adopted the slogan “crazy happens”–the unbelievable unfolding right before your eyes. Sometimes you have to wait until hope gets real skinny and starts looking at you like you’re the crazy one. Sometimes hope gets bigger as the waiting goes on. Then you know who’s the crazy one.

My family was waiting to buy a house when I said that with a little shrug and eyes that gleamed–“crazy happens.” Crazy did happen. It didn’t look like what I pictured, but let me tell you, it was even better. This very moment, I’m sitting in the house we built, right down the street from the house I had been so set on. Some of our best friends live directly behind us. They watched the house going up.

Who knows if we would have met them had we moved into the house with five acres and a sunset porch? We got one acre. We got to build. Exactly what we asked for at the outset. Down to the price, even. And then we built a sunrise patio, cool on a Texas summer evening. I don’t know if the friends were the icing or the cake.

Did I mention that the first time we met them they invited us to a Labor Day cookout at their place that night? A small town welcome. Open doors and open hearts.

Home. I love this place.