The Yellow House

Cherished Places and a Happy Birthday to Mama

The Yellow House

My mother¹ would have been 61-years-old today (Sept. 5, 2023). Nine years after her death, I still find this date, Sept. 5th, a bit perplexing. On the one hand I am grieved my mother never lived to see her sons marry or meet her grandchildren. On the other hand, I see her birthday as a day to honor the legacy of love she’s left behind. Had it not been for her moving mountains to provide for my brother (

Daniel Joseph Petty

), and me, I would have never come to find my most cherished location; The Yellow House.

After a few years of illegally using a relative’s address to attend a decent school system, my single-mother began renting the Yellow House just in time for us to begin high school. We could not have been blessed with better timing to begin living in this tiny space.

The Yellow House sits quietly at the edge of the small city of Barnesville, Ga. At scarcely more than 1000 square feet, the quaint size and layout of the house essentially forces bonding. Thankfully the single bathroom is set furthest away from the main living area…. But other than that, the design of the home requires that life be done communally. The two bedrooms and the kitchen join the main living space with no hallways. Only doors between. We had no choice but to live life together. This was still the day before the rule of the smartphone and praise God for that. The space demanded interaction. We cooked together. We ate together. We played games, watched TV and enjoyed company together.

The spirit of bonding fostered in this home seeped out into the rest of our lives. Naturally being extroverts, my brother and I began to offer to share our community of love at home with our friends. Not necessarily on purpose, but because this is how we’d learned to live. This love pulled people to our home.

It became normal to have friends over for dinner or to drop by for a chat on the front porch. It became expected to have friends over to run around and play soccer or throw a football in the yard². And the Yellow House became *the place to be for our wide variety of friends whenever we would decide to host a movie night. At one point my mother counted somewhere around 50 teens crammed into our tiny living room trying to follow Vantage Point. The Yellow House was a house full of laughter and overflowing with love.

I grew in my love for Christ, as this was the house I lived in as I started to attend the nearby church at the invitation of a beloved friend. I also grew to love a girl. In the Yellow House, I sat as a nervous wreck on the couch as I asked the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known to be my girlfriend. And years later, I would return to this house, kneel in the yard, and ask that beautiful woman to be my wife.

But as usual, the joy of love would come with lessons on loss.

This was the house where numerous friends would arrive to console Daniel and I at the sudden death of our biological father, who’d we only come to know in the few years prior. And this is the home where, just six months after my father’s death, I heard my mother wrenched in pain as she was given the news that her father, my Pawpaw, had passed away after a battle with ALS. This was the home where I learned that grief is not something you heal from; grief is only something you learn to live with.

Nothing lasts forever.

After graduating high school, my brother and I would move three hours away to attend college. My mother decided it was no longer wise to rent the Yellow House and chose to move into her own childhood home where Pawpaw had lived. Those same friends we’d made over the years graciously helped us to pack and move, shedding many tears along the way. I could not believe that my time at that sacred thin³ place had come to an end. Thank goodness it hadn’t…

Years would go by and life would go on. After graduating college in 2014, I would get my first “real job.” Just months into the new job, with one month until my wedding, my mother passed away after an 18-month struggle with gallbladder cancer. There would be some back and forth of jobs and moving after that, but in February of 2020 (go figure) my wife and I would learn of the coming of our first daughter. We’d always discussed moving closer to home once we started a family. As fate would have it, my wife started a search for available homes close to our hometown. The very first house to appear on Zillow was….you guessed it.. the Yellow House! I said, without hesitation, “we have to buy that house.” And we did! After months of mostly cosmetic renovations, we moved into that beloved space in January of 2021.

But wait there’s more…

After a year and a half in the Yellow House, my wife and I were blessed to learn that we would welcome a second child into our lives. But if you’ve been following you may remember the Yellow House is small. We gave it some serious thought and decided that two adults, a toddler and a soon-to-be newborn could use a larger space. And it just so happened that my in-laws had decided they needed less space… With the homes only separated by 10 minutes and no desire for paperwork or attorneys, we simply agreed to swap houses. No written agreements, only the grace and trust of a family that only works to take care of each other without taking each other for granted. And, in another example of God’s timing, this swap could not have come at a more meaningful time.

After only a few months of life back in his own hometown, and a five year battle with cancer, my father-in-law would pass away inside the Yellow House, never getting to meet his second grandchild. With God’s providence of the lessons already learned in that space, my family has been able to move forward in the understanding that, although grief is a permanent wound, there is love and life beyond the loss. My wife and I now do everything we can to show her mom the love and support necessary as she continues life in the Yellow House.

Never underestimate the impact a single decision can have on a person’s life. My mother made a decision to move us to the Yellow House in order that we have better access to a decent education. That single decision has led to a greater love for Christ, a fruitful marriage, countless friendships and the ability to continue to bless others with the use of that space. And while the Yellow House may not be my current living space, it will always be my home.

Thanks for choosing this house, mama. And happy birthday.

Have you ever reflected on a single decision that changed the course of your life? If so, let me know in the comments. I’d love to learn a bit of your story.

Do you have a personal thin place? If so, where?

1. I’ve written about my mother a bit before the major impact’s she’s had on my life. If you’re interested in how she helped develop my love for music, click here.

2. And it was implicit that all expected that all friends were required to help us throw rocks at the nearby railroad crossing sign.

3. While all places are of God’s creation, and therefore good, some physical locations posse an inexplicable spiritual gravity, pulling one closer to the divine. Known as “thin places,” relatively few locations actually acquire the *thin designation for the masses. But in my heart of hearts I believe we all have (or can find) our own personal thin place(s). Mine is, obviously, The Yellow House.