The table came from dear friends of ours who needed a place to leave it when they moved to the lower states and it had cost them thousands they said, but they’d love for us to have it and see it put to good use.

It’s been a workbench, then our kitchen table when we moved to the new house, then our picnic table, then the shooting bench.

It has seen family meals, game nights and parties, held the artillery of my family as we’ve target practiced in our back woods, been sawn into shape just perfect by my husband, and sanded smooth by my own two hands.

On the underneath is written, “to the best friends we’ve ever had,” and now it’s where I’ll spend my days working for kids I love and writing more books.

We love you so, and have treasured this table well, Jim and Shelia.

My son and my husband moved it into my little shack today, and of all the things I’ve seen come together in this tiny space my beloved has carved out for me, this table was one of the most precious.

I can’t say it’s the most precious though, because how could I choose?

The windows, these ancient, second-hand massive panes given to me by a sweet kind man our family loves, left to him by another sweet kind man our family loved just as much…those windows remind me of the friendship we shared and how he loved his daughter and was building a little palace for her complete with a library and a loft and windows that overlooked their beautiful little pond before she left this world all too soon, and then, less than a year later, he left us too.

I miss you, Joe.

Or the floor, remnants of our Joe too, but a bit more bittersweet as it was blessed to me by his widow, my dear sister-of-the-heart. Fancy and bamboo, my boys loaded it up, and my baby, that tall, broad-shouldered one now that Joe loved, teaching him when he was smaller how to work with wood and measure and cut and make something out of the mind that came from a tree…when my boy set up his saw to lay down my new floor and ended up doing it all so adeptly that Saturday afternoon like he’d been doing it all his life, so efficiently that all I had to do as his helper was hand him a board now and then and keep his path clear of tools and the folding chair I sat on drinking my Diet Coke…we’d come across the occasional board that had a saw cut or a nail hole, and my boy knew that his mentor and old friend had had his hands on it. We were quiet for those ones, and it was special when one of those cut boards would fit perfectly into the space waiting, as if Joe knew my boy would need that cut, that piece.

My boy loved you, Joe.

Or the silly green chalkboard walls, gathered up by my husband and I on one of his days off after one of my sweet, sweet friends texted me a picture of them from the local thrift store for builders. She thought maybe someone in my homeschool circles could put them to good use. I saw the size of them, 4×8, the exact same as a sheet of plywood, and knowing my husband was using his special savings account to fund my shack, their five-dollar price tag drove me to take a long lunch break with him across towns to the shop and convince him that I always wanted chalkboard walls. There were just enough there for what my walls needed with a pair left over to leave for the second gal in line, who only needed two.

I saved almost one hundred dollars on plywood with that purchase, but more than that, I got a trip with my husband where we were on a mission together to gather materials for this project that he set out to build brand-new, while I had tried to convince him I just needed something basic built with recycled junk. It was a compromise of our styles, and he was happy with the price tag, while I am thrilled that my babies have already left their mark in chalk, and I’ve fallen in love with the deep green and its peace.

Thank you, Amy.

Or the lights I found on Facebook Marketplace, trying to save my husband even more dollars from his fund he tries to keep untouched as an extra retirement stream…those glass globes my big boy went to fetch for me on his days off. Upon digging them out after he’d gone back to work, I found them tucked up carefully in a box, with baseball caps bearing my boy’s work logos all in between them, used to safely wrap up his mama’s light source so they wouldn’t break on the wild ride in the backseat of his truck.

Colton, you are so good to your mama.

I dragged out my mama’s rocking chair today, and last month, when Matt told me to start figuring out where I wanted outlets and light switches placed and where I was going to put the things I needed in my little 12×8 box, I drew a little sketch on my iPad and left a corner open for a chair. Somewhere to sit and read, or a welcoming spot for my kids or husband when they traversed across the backyard to come say hi.

My mama would have loved that spot and she would have delighted in me having my own little space probably as much if not more than she delighted in having her own little space in her precious little cabin on our property. She would have been here with me all the time, and this week I celebrated a birthday that was so full and busy that it wasn’t until the morning after that I realized never in my whole life have I ever had a birthday without talking to my mama, and that she is the only one who’s been part of me for every single one of my birthdays…and isn’t it an odd, empty feeling to know that when your mom is gone, there will never be another one for which your day of birth means as much?

I brought out the massive poppy painting today (another Marketplace find) and I had my boy help me hang it on my chalkboard walls over her bentwood rocking chair she so loved. I would have loved her to be my compadre and my company and my motivation here in my little space, and I will imagine the conversations we’d have and the quiet moments together, and even as my heart misses her so, I will smile.

I miss you, Mama.

All these little memories…these precious, precious touches within that surround me with love and warmth and remembrances of who I’ve loved and how I’m loved…but this whole thing, this whole need for this little place, this shack, this quiet place of my own…it’s all girded from the heart of the man who’d do anything to see his woman happy and have what she needs, and not only what she needs, what she wants.

When he saw that I was serious about needing a place of my own to work in the quiet, separate from the ever-changing pace of this home we’ve built, one that has adult children coming and going and days changing on a dime, and every-other week adjusting to the oilfield schedule…that distractions are something his wife’s ever-sharp brain used to be able to roll with and thrive in but now leave her frazzled and frustrated and just pining to get her work done…when he understood that me packing up to work in another room or at my nearby friend’s quiet kitchen table didn’t mean I didn’t want to be around family but just needed to be able to concentrate…when he finally got it that his work-from-home lady was contemplating uprising their whole family life and homeschool and farm to begin a daily commute to an office building forty minutes away or else quit the job she’s poured her life and their family into for the past eight years just so she could have some peace in her brain and in her days…when he heard that she was looking into how much it would cost to have a little she-shed built outside their back door so she could maintain some peace in her brain and have a quiet place to settle and get some work done and do the writing that her heart longed to do…

He got to work.

He was at Home Depot the next day and now, less than two months later, he’s given his beloved a sweet little spot in the woods where it is quiet and where she can step away from the place she loves most but that makes her perimenopausal brain a spaghetti mess of noise and distractions when it is time for her to focus.

He’s given his beloved a peaceful place.

For the past two months, he has given our family a focus, a goal, a common-minded push, and whether he realizes it or not, it was what we needed after the tumultuousness of the push of building for my mama, and the push of getting through the shock and grief of her passing, and the long haul of this parenting young adult children who are steadily going out into their young adult lives while their parents live in the precipice, navigating this new season while still working and loving and holding down the daily routines that make up life that is ever-changing…around us and them and this world.

He didn’t know in his simple gesture of buying lumber that he was really doing something more.

He thought what he was doing what he knows to do, what he has done since the early 1990s, what is in his drive to do: to make his woman happy, safe, comfortable, and loved.

But what he really did was provide.

Provide a place in a season of increased distractions and interruptions where his woman can continue to focus daily on the work of the job she loves while still being available to her farm and her family and their cyclic oilfield schedule, all while remaining on a routine she’s carved out with a high rate of success for eight years.

Provide a refuge where she can pour out the writings of her heart safely and quietly, away from noise and inhibition. (He knows well his wife’s writing time often comes with loud praise music, prayer, out-loud editing, and snot-flying tears.)

Provide a shelter that will be only hers for the days of now but for all the days to come, knowing that a writer’s studio was always a retirement dream of his sweetheart.

Just over a year and a half ago he set down the plans to build the most beautiful interior of my mama’s cabin shell, then put his back and his brain into it, making her the happiest mother-in-law on the planet.

“I’m an electrician, not a builder.” So many times I heard that during his struggle to put my mama’s cabin together.

And now, before he’s probably even recovered, he’s put together this little shack for me so that I’ll be happy and peaceful and can continue on the very best I can in this season doing what he knows I live to do: to work and to write.

He may be an electrician stumbling his way through a builder’s life, but whether he knows it or not, he’s a builder.

He’s built a career with his back and his brain and his hands and his hard work.

He’s built a faith with his trust and his surrender and his listening to the LORD.

And he’s built a family with his love and his faithfulness and his devotion from day one and every single day after.

He’s provided a space and provided a place.

He’s a builder.

And now, he’s built me a writer’s shack.

When you make something for someone you love, aren’t you then a builder?

Builder: a person who constructs something by putting parts or material together.

My sweetheart is a builder.

He’s provided a place and a space.

You are a builder.

What are you constructing with parts or materials or words or actions?

What love or memories or people or character have you added to your daily endeavors?

I am thankful, so thankful, as I step into this little 96 square feet space I never knew I’d need, that I am surrounded by the love and the memories and the character and the effort and the might and the heart of those I’ve been blessed to know and who I hold close and carry with me.

Having that love with me inspires me to love more. To make this world a better place.

To build.

Having this work, these gifts, these memories surround me…

I want to provide a space and provide a place.

It makes me want to be a builder.