From a Tennessee Porch: A Letter of Faith and Memory

📬 From Lorene B., Tennessee

Submitted to The Biblical Homestead

Dear friends,

I’ve been meaning to write for some time now.

I suppose part of me felt a little silly—sending a letter to folks I’ve never met in person. But after reading your blog and watching your videos these past few months, I don’t feel like a stranger anymore. In some ways, I feel like I’ve stepped right onto your land and sat down for coffee. Your words and ways have been such a comfort to me, and I thought maybe I’d share a little of my heart, too.

You see, I’m in my sixties now. My husband and I are what you’d call “debt-free,” but not exactly land-rich. We have a good home and steady peace between us—but not the acreage we always dreamed of. It’s funny how prices rise and time slips away. We thought about selling and buying something with a little land, but these days even an acre outside town costs more than the whole house did back when we bought it. And building? Mercy. You’d need a banker and a lawyer just to put up a barn.

So instead, we’re settled. Not unhappily—just settled.

We’ve got a few raised beds tucked along the back fence and a small clothesline where I still hang laundry when the weather’s fair. I’ve got herbs in pots on the back porch and a good sourdough starter that behaves most days. I’ve canned what little our little yields, and I’ve learned to find joy in what’s within reach. Still, when I watch your family tending goats and walking your land in the snow, I feel something stir. Not envy, exactly—more like kinship. It’s as though the dream lives on through you, and I get to borrow it for a while.

Sometimes I’ll sit with my tea and just close my eyes while your videos play, letting the crackle of the fire or the hum of the goats take me back—not to my own homestead, but to my grandparents’.

A Memory That Lingers

They lived in a white clapboard farmhouse just outside a little town called Lavergne—not much more than a few roads and a post office back then. Their home sat on four acres, with wide fields that ran down to the edge of a woods I was never quite brave enough to explore.

The house was old even when I was young. It had those big, carved doorframes and tall baseboards, painted over more times than you could count. The floors creaked in every hallway, and the stairs moaned like they had something to say. The front parlor had an old settee with carved wood arms and dusty green upholstery, and on the walls hung floral prints in dark, carved frames that probably came from a catalog in the 1930s. A corner shelf held a glass figurine of a girl in a bonnet, and the lace curtains always smelled like starch and cedar.

But the kitchen—that’s what I remember most.

The scent of percolated coffee, bacon grease kept in a tin on the stove, and homemade rolls always tucked under a towel. There was a floral oilcloth on the table and a bread box that squeaked when it opened. My grandmother wore aprons every day of her life, and my grandfather had a quiet way of praying before every meal that made you lower your eyes without being told to.

When I stayed with them, I went to church every Sunday—no exceptions. I remember climbing into the back seat of their big Buick, my hair curled and bobby-pinned, clutching my little white purse. They took me to a tiny white church with worn pews, hard fans, and a hymnal that smelled like old paper and perfume. That was where I first heard “Come Thou Fount” and felt something stir in my heart I couldn’t name.

I didn’t know then that it was the beginning of everything I still hold dear.

Not Just Remembering, But Living

So while I don’t live on a homestead, and probably never will, I keep those memories close. They shape the way I hang my laundry and knead my bread. They guide my prayers and remind me that a quiet life is still a rich one.

Your blog and your stories have stirred all that up in me again. Not in sadness—but in joy. You’ve given voice to a way of life that still matters. And even though I may be watching from a small backyard in Tennessee, I feel connected to something much bigger—something older and deeper.

So thank you for sharing your life with people like me.

Please know your stories are being read with great care and gratitude in a little house with herbs on the porch and laundry on the line.

Warmly,
Lorene B.
Lavergne, TN