Two years ago this week, I moved into this 757 square foot farmhouse with Meander and 3 cats. Two years later, we’ve acquired 2 more cats, 2 more dogs, 14 chickens, 2 guineas, 6 goats, and a wonderful, amazing, patient man. It’s been a great two years. 
We’ve had people who have helped us clean the land and build structures – the most recent an outhouse on the trail to the spring, built by my dad. We’ve had guests spend the day here for our wedding. Friends have camped in the fields, slept in the single bedroom, and crashed on our couch. Big meals over fires and little ones in our living room. And so many s’mores consumed.
I had my first Writer’s Retreat in this space, and I’ve laughed and cried countless hours here.
This place has been healing and hope to me, and the land – the gift of this little mountainside – has given me so much more than I ever imagined it could. Two books and the love of my life.
This 10 acres – God’s Whisper Farm for not much longer – has been restored and has brought restoration. We have done our work together, and soon, it will be time to move on.
So in honor of these two years, in tribute to the gifts of this land and the healing it carried, my book God’s Whisper Manifesto: The Makings of a Dream is just 99 cents for the next few days.
I wrote this book just two months after moving here – when I’d finished the draft of The Slaves Have Names – and heard the wisdom of Laraine Herring who told me “start the next thing.” It poured out of me in just days – a testament to how long the dream of this place had lived in a golden space behind my third rib.
The book is brief, but it’s strong. On its pages, you’ll find the 10 principles by which we live here – including “Love People First and Hard.” Here’s a little snippet:
Loving is not easy. We sometimes like to pretend that loving someone is just about being nice to them, but sometimes love isn’t nice. Sometimes it’s quite hard and can feel quite mean in the moment. But love is about seeking the best for a person, even at expense to ourselves and even when it is hard in the moment. Love is never simple.
I hope you will pick up a copy of the book, and I hope you will help me refine those principles with your insights and experiences. But most of all, as we pick up these two people and these 30 animals to move to our new farm, we hope you will travel with us – in word and in body. Come visit. Bring a notebook or don’t. Put your feet on a comfy chair and read or stare out at the neighbor’s cows.
For our prayer is that this new place will bring healing in all new ways – for us and for you.
Don’t forget to pick up your $.99 copy of God’s Whisper Manifesto. You can get it here.