Haven & Lore began long before it had a name.

It started in the life of our family. In the years around the table where meals were shared, music was played, and candles burned. In the stories read aloud then retold and delighted in again. In our garden attempts, in the traditions we kept, in the lessons we learned and are learning still, and in the work and play that filled our every-days.

One day followed another. And somewhere along the way I began to see our days differently. They weren't the spaces between the more important things in life. These days were the life God had given. And within them, He was writing our family story, held within His infinitely greater one.

Over time, what was taking shape within those days began to find its way onto the page.

First the writings and experiences were intended only for our family. But others were eventually offered to those around us and are now being born, in part from the rhythm we have started to notice woven through life God. The ancient way that reaches all the way back to the very first home. Receiving God's gifts with wonder, tending His gifts with faithfulness, gathering with gratitude, and, in worship, offering all things back to the One from whom every good gift comes.

My children are not little anymore. But one of the greatest gifts of this season is our family coming together to create. The words in our books are mostly mine, but my daughter is our editor and photographer, and she writes stories of her own (www.emmykaroline.com). Our illustrations are handmade by my husband and son.

And while I am deeply grateful for the life God has given me, I find myself more and more thinking about, and maybe longing for, the one that is to come.

Because though our homes are undoubtedly a gift and incredibly important, they are just a whisper really of the Place God is preparing.

The firstfruits God told His people to gather pointed far beyond the yearly harvest. They told of the Savior. The Lamb who would, and did, come to mend His broken world. To pay the heavy and impossible debt that was ours. And, as only He could do, make a way for us to one day, in all intended fullness, forever dwell with Him.

On some level, I think we're all aching for that place.

May what we offer accompany your family as your story unfolds within His, and as together we look toward our everlasting Home with God.

-Shelley Pimentel