My Not-So-Awesome, Totally True, Firsthand Experience of Living in a Tiny Home

Apparently, it's a thing these days to trade in big houses for an insanely cheap and efficient "Tiny Homes." At first Pinterest glance, these luxurious micro houses look tempting. 

Seriously...

…who wouldn't want those cozy lofts and those sweet operating costs!

Let me tell you something. I lived in tiny homes before they were cool. Granted, they were never "Pinterest perfect," but they were tiny, and they were home. My family didn't have a cute name for them though. We just called them what they were, "storage sheds."

When I was small, I lived in one such "tiny home" with my parents and a brother. I'm too young to remember much. Mostly, I remember lots of mud. I remember cramped quarters and spending a lot of time outdoors. I know my mom cooked outside, and I don’t remember having a toilet or much light in there. Sometime after that, when there were several more of us kids running around, we had a slightly larger "tiny home." 8 of us lived in portion of a house we were building. The portion we lived in was eventually supposed to be the kitchen and dining room. Instead, with temporary plywood walls in place, it served as a fully functional 2bed, 1bath family dwelling. It was complete with a kitchenette, and a corner for a couch, but it eventually it did what tiny houses do. 

It got crowded. 

After one of my brothers married and left it vacant, I got to move into the storage shed in the front yard. It was insulated. It had electricity and an air conditioner in one of the windows. Dad was (and still is) a great carpenter. So, it was very comfortable, much more comfortable than sharing a room with my four youngest siblings. I had just enough room for a twin bed on one side, a bookshelf on the other side, and a tiny little rug in between them. I rigged up a curtain rod in one corner and leaned a tall mirror up against a wall to make a “walk-in” closet. It was my very own tiny home! I camped there until I traded it for a dorm room.

When I married, I got to upgrade to a 1 bedroom apartment, and later to a 3 bedroom house. Goodness! That was a wonderful change, but let me tell you the been-there-done-that-got-the-t shirt truth. You certainly don't need much to live well. In fact, you actually need a whole lot less than you might be comfortable admitting. However, it's possible to go overboard trying to prove a frugal point. You don't have to make yourself a claustrophobic martyr to promote a spirit of gratefulness. 

If you have too much stuff, get rid of it. If your electric bill is too high, start turning off some lights. If making changes and sacrifices for a more financially responsible life means trading your big house for a smaller one, do it! Live frugally. Live simply, but for your own sanity, downsize responsibly.

I Will Never Forget

I will never forget.

It was 9:00 am. My brother Jonathan and I had sneaked into his room during the morning chores. We were supposed to be cleaning, but we had sneaked away to try to catch a few minutes of our favorite "kids shows" on PBS. At 9:00 am, we turned on the TV. but we didn't find our shows.


We saw this and froze.

"I think we need to go get dad..." Jonathan quivered in a very frightened ten year old voice. He instantly knew something was horribly  wrong.

"No, don't worry about it. It's just a movie." I assured him.

I knew it was too early in the day for there to be a movie on TV,I was shocked. In 12 year old mind, it HAD to be a movie because that building had people in it. It got hit by an airplane that also had people in it. That ONLY happens in movies and in foreign countries. There was no way it could be real, but it was real.

At  9:03am, I watched a second plane hit the other tower.  My heart sunk and my blood turned cold as a realized not only was this real life, but real people had just died right before my eyes. I frantically changed the channel, still hoping it wasn't real. It was the same thing on the next channel. and the next....and the next. Then, before I could digest it, the Pentagon was burning!

I'll never forget the word "Terrorists." My dad told us that they were responsible for this, but I didn't even know what a terrorist was! As our family watched together, Dad told us that our country was headed for war, that this was history in the making. I have never been so scared or confused. This wasn't supposed to happen, but it had.

I'll never forget my great grandmother saying to us, "This is exactly how it felt the day Pearl Harbor was attacked."

 I woke up on September 11, 2001 as a twelve year old kid, but that night, I went to bed a lot older. I'd seen people die. I realized that life is short, and dangerous. Like Pearl Harbor was for generations past, the moment the towers fell, was a huge mark on the timeline of my life. Until that point, time moved slowly, but after that, the clock seemed to speed up. I blinked my eyes and our country was at war. I went to sleep, woke up, and it had been a year, then two, three, four, then five.

Today I woke up, and it had been thirteen years. Children have been born since then that don't remember that day. Grass has grown where rubble was, where blood was spilled, where tears were shed. I look at the pictures of "Ground Zero" today and I see beauty where the rubble used to be, and it makes me think of a man named Joseph. I remember the tragedies of his life, how mistreated and abused he was. His life was as full of trouble as Ground Zero was once filled with ashes, but when the trouble was over, he was able to say the same thing that we can say today...

"You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20)

It was a day that I will never forget. It was a day that a lot of us will never forget, but the trouble didn't last forever. Where there was once rubble and death and ugliness, trees are growing. The broken foundations of a pair of destroyed building are now a pair of beautiful fountains. From a generation that will never forget September 11, 2001, a new one has grown that never will know it like we did.

Whether you are remembering the events of September 11, 2001 or dreading what may happen in the future, let this day of memory remind you that no matter how terrible the tragedy, God is bogger. The trouble will not last. Our God generously trades beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, and peace for despair.