Sacrifice - digg this
A family in South Wales built a little house under the hill. It's an incredible project. It took four months, almost fifteen hundred man hours, and three thousand English monetary units. He built it using a chainsaw, a hammer and a one inch chisel.
If you enjoyed this entry subscribe to this blog by email or feed readerHere are a few pictures.
He includes rough plans (he's not formally trained apparently) and a few details as to how he did it on the site. Things like this amaze me. They did it in part because of a lack of funds, but mostly because they want to have a living experience that is in tune with their ecological ideals.
Living out your ideals typically takes sacrifice. For this house they do without quite a few things that me and my fellow countrymen hold dear. Little things like cable TV, central air, and some sense (albeit a false one) of permanence. Of course they're also doing without a mortgage and a home owner's association. I think that's a fair trade.
Raising a family on one income is one of these sorts of challenges. We're in a place right now, trying to decide what were willing to give up to gain some financial independence that we have lost due to this choice. We're reading Total Money Makeover to get some ideas in that direction. One of the things he talks about is getting a second job. My beloved is doing a lot of side work to help us out. Granted it's all stuff that she enjoys, but it means that Saturdays we hardly see each other.
We look at one another and say that it's only temporary. Our hope is that in a year or so we'll be in a better place. A place where she won't need to work outside the house unless she just wants to. It's hard work getting there, but it's good. It reveals to me just how insufficient my fathering skills are and drives me to God's grace. It reveals to me just how incredible the woman I'm married to is. It reveals to me how God's provision rarely takes the form that we wished it would and how much better that provision is than the kind we'd like would be. Still I pray for this season to pass soon.
And I totally would live in a hobbit house when that day comes.
