I'm a Southerner, an Okie, a Colorado mountain man's daughter. A farm girl in a city girl's body. I long for the lonely sound of wind through the pines. I marvel at the endless prairie skies, and my soul is stirred by waving fields of wheat. I believe pie binds, chocolate heals, casseroles comfort and biscuits are the way to a man's heart. Sentiment is essential, the new always leads back to the old and God is over all.
I belong nowhere and everywhere all at once. I am God's child and my life is His mission.
No, I did not grow up on a farm. In fact, I grew up in a mid-sized Colorado suburb, only having lived out in the country in a "mini-ranch" subdivision towards the end of middle school . By all reasoning, most would call me a suburban youth. While not a city girl one could not really call me a country girl either.
Facts withstanding, I am a tried and true country girl at heart. I always have been. My soul has always been restless. It doesn't belong in the city, it belongs under Gods big sky, where people give you the shirt off their back, friends gather to quilt, the country fair is the highlight of the summer and you greet the Lord when you step outside each day. The dirt runs through your fingers, you watch your food grow and you make the lovely out of what is available. It is where I am at home. Is it where I live? No, but it is where I dream of living one day.
Perhaps it is because it is in my roots. It's in my blood. My father's cousin still owns the family farm along the Ohio River Valley in Southern Illinois. There was always something stirring about visiting the old farm house his mother and her 12 brothers and sisters grew up in. Lillian Childers, my father's mother, was known all around for not putting up with any bull. That is, any literal bull!
Then there was my mother's father, born and raised on a farm in south-central Kentucky along the Green River. Although Grandad left those rural roots to attend college after World War II, he could make anything grow. I remember watching my brother follow him through the rows as he plowed and prepped his garden on those muggy Kentucky summer days.
Whatever the reason might be, this city livin' girl has a dream. A dream of moving back home. Back home to the country.
To the rural. To the quaint and simple.
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| Photo courtesy ConrhodZonio.com |
Two years ago that dream seemed impossible. Today it seems closer because I chose imperfection over perfection. You see, I was waiting for the perfect time to start my side business. Ever since my wedding day, almost ten years ago, I had longed to use my talents as a graphic designer to create lovely, personal and unique wedding stationery. I kept waiting for my husband to find that magical job that would allow me to quit and focus on the perfect launch of an exciting new endeavor. Life had other plans.
Year after year and prayer after prayer, that "magical" moment in time never came. Eight years later I had two kids, a husband who couldn't find work in a down economy and a job that could barely cover the bills. I tried always to be grateful, for in many ways we were so blessed. Our children were beautiful, healthy and a delight, we had a roof over our heads and each other. But I still felt the need to ask God "Why?" I will be honest. I was bitter. I was angry. I felt trapped by circumstances out of our control. God often seemed far away, obscured by life's sometimes suffocating obstacles. I didn't understand, but I had to believe He was there waiting for me.
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| Top Photo Courtesy Clayton Austin Photography |
As always the Lord works in ways we do not understand. No, there wasn't an "aha" moment where the clouds broke and the sunbeams shown down from heaven. But there was this crazy desperate sense of necessity to create a door through which I could walk. Through which all these talents the Lord had blessed me with could be freed. This drive came from that which I despised: the difficulties life's circumstances had dealt our small family.
Over the last two years there have been great highs and low lows, but there is a freedom and a creative outlet that has renewed my faith in God's time and a confidence in who He has made me. I see Him at work in my garden growing things in me that I did not know were there. I am now the proud owner of The Blu Sash and the joys and heartaches of running your own business. I also still work full-time, having recently been promoted, while my husband has found work outside his field and we are continually blessed by the gift of our children.
Life isn't easy, but it's a blessing. There is no perfect except what is found in the Lord's creation and purpose. Both the sunshine and the rain bring forth a garden which will nourish you and those around you. Perhaps that is why I love to be near God's country. It is there that I am the closest to being who he made me to be. Unobscured by the concrete walls of those things that do not matter, you grow.
Bloom where you are planted, you rural soul.
Many Blessings, Donia Simmons
{ THE BLU SASH }
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