When I tell people that we’ve moved to a 35-acre farm on the dusty Colorado prairie, I’m often met with carefully hidden surprise and the unspoken Why? The answer to that is a bit elusive. If you have never felt the pull of an open field and the empty beauty of crisp blue skies, you might never understand—because this lifestyle is not for everyone, and that is OK.

But for us, it’s the bright, golden glow of ditches full of wild sunflowers, greeting you in the early morning sun. It’s a silent moment on a warm, summer afternoon, broken by the clear, soulful trill of a prairie songbird. It’s a happy chicken, chasing a grasshopper in the pasture grass. It’s a litter of puppies, all tumble-bumble, and wet noses, and fluffy sweetness. It’s children, running as long and as far as they can, with nothing but their breath to stop them, and bursting back inside smelling of wind and sunshine and childhood. It’s sunsets, blazing and pure, mixing impossible colors into impossible works of art, every evening. It’s a cold, dark night without a single sound, just the shift of the breeze, and the orange harvest moon rising in the east with stars scattered brightly in the sky.

In each of these instances, you catch your breath, and hold it for mere seconds. There is nothing in the world but this one, beautiful, aching moment. You feel the mighty hand of your Creator and the love of your Redeemer, and you see His marvel in the sky, and you know you are but a small creation yet so greatly loved.

Four years ago, I’m not sure even I would have believed that my family would be living on a farm or milking goats. At that point, we lived in a cute little fixer-upper in the middle of the city. We had a decent backyard, backing up to a very noisy road. We had two kids and two dogs, and sometimes we grew zucchini in the summer. I was pretty happy in my role of mama to two and enjoying a relatively stable lifestyle. Backyard chickens were the last thing on my mind. But my husband was starting to get what I call the Pa Ingalls Syndrome—that too-many-people, no-room-to-breathe, restless feeling.

In God’s ever-surprising providence, my parents unexpectedly began the process of moving to Colorado. Through a series of events, we agreed to sell our home and rent their new home until they were able to retire.

My parents’ plan was to retire in four to five years, so we were not looking to move again anytime soon. They had bought a lovely home in the forest, on two-and-a-half acres, with a big, beautiful barn. That barn, and that tiny plot of land, somehow wheedled its way into our subconscious and convinced us we were born to be farmers.

We bought a used coop and some fencing and obtained four laying hens. I fell hard. I loved watching those chickens scratch about. I loved walking out with my girls to gather eggs. I loved when they picked up the hens and carried them around like big, fluffy pets. But most of all, I loved that we were giving our children a rich experience and healthy, delicious eggs that we had grown ourselves. We had our first taste of the homestead life.

We had our third baby girl the next year, and she had some health problems that slowed us down. Even through the midst of the stress and concern we felt for her, we found the small distraction of chickens soothing.

My parents were considering retiring sooner than they had planned, and we started planning where we might move. We were discouraged by the rising price of homes and saddened that we were not able to buy a home in the same area.

Sitting on the couch one evening, I came across a video on a homesteader blog. Up to this point, we had not really considered having more than chickens or pursuing homesteading. While we had always dreamed of raising our kids in the country, the price of land and homes in our area had made us assume that we would not own land for years. But as I watched this video of a young family milking their cow, raising their pigs, cooking beautiful food in their small farmhouse kitchen, and explaining why they chose this life, I fell hard, once again. I wanted that life. I wanted the sunshine for our little ones, the tranquility for my hardworking husband, and the wide, blue skies for this Kansas girl. I wanted a country oasis, a place of peace and quiet, a farm home. Neither my husband nor I could get that image out of our heads. How could we go back to city living now?

We told our real estate agent we only wanted to see properties that had at least five acres. At first we had not wanted to live farther than 20 minutes from my parents, but the reality of price and income, juxtaposed with our big dreams, was making that evermore unrealistic. Soon we began looking at homes and properties 30 minutes away. The market was so hot that properties would be listed one day and be gone the next. We made an offer on an outdated fixer-upper that had five acres of lush green pasture. We were notified later that evening that someone had offered so far over the asking price that we could not even touch it. We tried to find financing for a gutted home on ten acres but could not find the proper lender. We often had no more than ten homes in our listing criteria at a time. Our window for an ideal moving time was dwindling, and our hopes were starting to fade that we would be able to buy our dream home.

One day a new property popped up on my phone. It was 45 minutes away from my parents’ home. We had seen several homes that far away, but none of them had had enough to offer to make us willing to consider the drive. But from the second I looked at those photos, I couldn’t shake how cute the house was. It was tiny by modern standards, but it had a charming stone front and a picnic table near a little pond in the front yard. It had a large garage for a workshop and a loafing shed for animals in the back. And it was on 35 acres. Only in our wildest dreams had we hoped for so much acreage. We had thought 10 would be extravagant, yet here was this little home, with acres and acres of pasture, just inside our price range.

The next morning, we got up early and made the drive to see it. The drive was so serene and peaceful on that beautiful July morning. The traffic and the city dropped away behind us, and we drove down country roads that reminded us so strongly of our Kansas childhoods. When we arrived, the air was still, and there was the sound of so many meadowlarks, singing in the grass. Meadowlarks have been my favorite bird since I was young. When you drive along lonely Kansas highways, you can hear their song faintly through the windowpanes of your traveling car. Their song is so clear and recognizable; it has always spoken home to my heart.

We left that morning feeling conflicted. If this place had been 20 minutes closer, we would have put an offer on it without thinking. But we were worried—less about our own commitment to driving and more about what other people might think. Looking back now, it’s so silly the concern we had over others’ opinions.

We listened to God’s gentle leading, and the encouragement of dear friends, and jumped. We had second guesses and doubts until the day we moved in. What were we doing? Plenty of people thought we were crazy. But the first morning in our new home dawned clear and quiet, and I knew that God had led us here for a purpose.

This home was given to us at such a tumultuous season in our lives. The time after our third daughter was born had been fraught with weariness and concern, and the year following our move proved to be full of even steeper challenges. But this home has been such a gift. One year after we first saw our home, we sat on the front bench in stunned silence. As the sun quietly set, we processed the news of our daughter’s rare genetic disorder. And as our hearts cried for our daughter, and sought God for our comfort, the meadowlarks sang.

Every time there has been a trial or an overwhelming moment with her diagnosis, we have been able to drive away from the specialist’s office, or away from the hospital, or away from the therapist, and come home. We come home to peace, and beauty, and quiet. We come home to animals that need our care and to mindless chores that are soothing and therapeutic. We come home to the constancy of stars and sunsets. We come home to something that is other than and apart from our stresses, to something stable, firm, real, and safe. We come home to hard work, fresh eggs and creamy milk for breakfast, roosters crowing, and goats bleating outside the open window. And we come home to three sweet little farm girls, playing blissfully in the morning light.

We can see, with a brief glimpse of clarity, how God’s perfect plan for our lives has led us here and blessed us so. Those flashes of perfection are a balm on our weary souls, speak peace to our hearts, and remind us daily of God’s good gifts and everlasting promises.

Emily Hamer lives in Yoder, Colo., with her husband, Jeremiah, and their three little girls. They have a small hobby farm, and Emily writes a blog narrating their journey (inoverourhomestead.com). They are members of Tri-Lakes (Monument, Colo.) RPC.