Life Skills
Life Lessons from Building Our Tiny House
Our tiny house taught us more about self-reliance than we ever thought possible.
Graduate school is not really the time to build a house. For many students studying in the medical field, their lives and time revolve around full-time laboratory work, in addition to taking advanced classes and often teaching.
Imagine the looks I got when I told people we were going to build a tiny house in the middle of graduate school.
My wife, Jennifer, and I moved to Texas, USA, with our four-month-old to begin my graduate studies in biology. Six months later, I found a position at a magnificent lab on a remote campus, which meant we would have to move again. After careful consideration and a lot of prayer, we decided to follow the inspiration and move. We quickly found, however, that the housing options exceeded our budget.
Having just finished the Church’s financial self-reliance course, we wanted to live within our means. We prayerfully reviewed our finances and searched diligently, but we simply couldn’t afford to live anywhere in our new area. But we knew the Lord had a plan for us to be there.
Building Our Tiny House
We had heard of tiny houses in passing but had never seen one, let alone discussed living in one. But from the moment I finally took a step inside of one, there was a spiritual nudge that seemed to say, “This is your answer.”
Mobile tiny houses are typically less than 400 square feet and are built on sturdy trailers. Their size can make them inexpensive and quick to build. As we considered this option, the Spirit confirmed that this was a way the Lord had prepared for us to do the things He needed us to do while in Texas. Jennifer and I considered our budget, looked at logistics, and decided the best option would be to build the home ourselves, though it would be difficult. Because I could only take a little time off school, we would have a tight timeline and could only build in the hot Texas summer.
Still, we believed that if the Lord approved of us doing it, He would provide a way. We presented our plan to the Lord and received an unmistakable confirmation to proceed. Jennifer said it perfectly: “I feel like Nephi, commanded to build a boat. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know the Lord will show us how!”
We began planning, and miracles rapidly fell into place that helped us move forward. But we also hit many obstacles.
Completing our home often felt impossible. For starters, there was so much that we didn’t know! The brutal summer heat made the work difficult and tiring. We worked from before dawn till past midnight. We often had to ask others for help, and a vital tool even broke early on, requiring us to improvise. We feverishly pushed ourselves, getting less and less sleep as the days wore on.
But in six grueling weeks, we were finished. From nothing but a flatbed trailer on day one, we built a safe and comfortable structure that we now call home. We have loved living in our tiny home.
Reflecting on this experience, I have been amazed at how much there was to learn, especially about self-reliance. Here are just three lessons I’d like to share.
Lesson 1: Don’t neglect your spiritual foundation.
The Church’s self-reliance courses teach about spiritual principles that must be exercised to receive the associated temporal blessings (see 1 Nephi 22:3; Doctrine and Covenants 29:34).
In building our home, a lot of our preparation time was spent choosing the best trailer that would fit our needs and be a strong foundation to build on. While I focused intently on ensuring a strong foundation for our home, I unfortunately started neglecting my personal foundation during the build. The stress and consuming involvement with the building process pushed scripture study and prayer into the background. This dip in obedience began to show until, much like Laman and Lemuel, I began to murmur more frequently and audibly. I didn’t catch on to how much this was affecting me until exhaustion and fatigue met frustration and anger.
I was missing out on the spiritual power that comes from those daily habits to bring the Spirit into my life. I realized that I needed to refocus and realign myself with heaven. Diligence in daily scripture study and prayer brings about a steadiness in life that we need at all times. Whether that steadiness is in the calm of routine or the chaos of accomplishing the seemingly impossible, we all need that daily connection with heaven.
Those habits of regular study and prayer have been painfully difficult to restart. But now, looking back, I can see the stark difference in how I feel. We can’t neglect our personal foundation as we’re moving toward our goals.
Lesson 2: “All these things shall give thee experience”—use it! (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7).
Before deciding to build our tiny house, I recalled many previous experiences. When I was 13, my family moved. But due to my father’s relapse of cancer, I became a major contributor to building our new home. While this taught me many valuable skills and abilities, I harbored many dark and difficult memories of stress and heartache. So I wasn’t too keen on jumping into that again. I knew that if the Lord told us to do it, we could and would build our home, but I didn’t want to.
I occasionally thought that the skills I obtained as a youth were simply to convince me that I was not cut out for construction and seemed, in some respects, a waste of time. Yet in our build, I repeatedly came to situations I had encountered before. It was in these moments that the whisperings of the Spirit would encourage me, saying, “You’ve been prepared for this time.” I began to appreciate personally that the Lord does “prepare a way for [us to] accomplish the thing[s] … he command[s]” (1 Nephi 3:7).
While Nephi didn’t know how to construct a ship initially, he did have the experience necessary to gain revelation from the Lord to learn how to build a ship. He did have experience working hard and being resourceful. The Lord used Nephi’s previous experiences to perform a miracle to build a ship that even Laman and Lemuel called “good” (see 1 Nephi 18:4).
It does no good to complain about what we don’t know. Rather, we ought to roll up our sleeves with the knowledge and experience we do have and get to work. When we’re doing the Lord’s work, He will fill in what we cannot do.
Lesson 3: You’re still self-reliant even if you need help—so ask!
I hate asking for help. Personally, this comes from the deeply seated false concept that asking for help is indicative of failure. I used to think that asking for help was a sign of my laziness or incompetence, and that I was inconveniencing others. It was OK for others to ask for help, but not me. I was totally wrong.
I knew we needed help building our home early on, and I reached out, but not very effectively or consistently. The Lord was very merciful in sending help along the way, but I clearly couldn’t reap what I chose not to sow. I needed to reach out and accept the help that was offered.
The very nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we all need a Savior. Our salvation is only possible through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Everyone needs help. Becoming self-reliant doesn’t eliminate our need for others. Rather, it keeps us from relying on others in matters that we can, in time, learn to perform for ourselves. We become independent, capable of doing things without reliance on others. We certainly still need others, but we can act of our own free will and choice rather than acting through the filter of another.
Taking Responsibility for Our Own Self-Reliance
Jennifer and I agree that building our home is the hardest thing either of us has ever done. But we are amazed at how much we learned about self-reliance along the way. We reflect in awe at the many miracles that occurred on this adventure, and we enjoy an incredible peace in our home and in our accomplishment. We try to share our home often and continue to shape it into a center of gospel learning. We even recommend living in a tiny home!
One key principle from the financial self-reliance course is that we have to take responsibility for ourselves. No one else can do it for us. I also know, however, that as we seek to be self-reliant in the Lord’s way, He will make all things possible. As we focus on our foundation, trust in the experiences the Lord will give, and seek appropriate help, we can become self-reliant and happy.