Another Big Step

Michael Stover
5 min readDec 23, 2021

On this date eight years ago, my family and I were homeless. Today, we just finished closing on the purchase of a home.

The author’s home

On this date eight years ago, my family and I were homeless. Today, we just finished closing on the purchase of a home.

That’s quite a bit for me to take in at one fell swoop. As I sit here contemplating all that has happened during that eight-year period, I’m awed and humbled. So many people and events came and went that were all part of getting me here. How can I thank them all? How does a mere “thank you” express what I feel?

Life is Hard

No doubt, you have already learned this great lesson: life is hard. Here are some more, while I’m making a list:

  • Nothing worth having comes easy.
  • There are no guarantees in life, except for death.
  • People will disappoint you.
  • People will destroy you if you let them.
  • People do not care about you.
  • Some people defy those lessons above and choose to help and care for you.

If you’ve read my story before, you know that a previous career serving others imploded and left my wife and I, and five children, homeless and 500 miles from any family that could take us in. We literally lost everything. We watched a…

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