God is Faithful
Boy, it has been a minute since I’ve last posted on this blog. Social media has been the “new” thing. I am officially no longer on any social media platform, so I am dusting off this good old fashioned blog.
We’ve had a major life change recently. We moved. After 14 years of living in the house we built (and loved very much), we sold it and moved to a rental home. Actually, if you wanted to be technical, we sold it twice. Ha! Let me explain.
2019. We had put up with the yahoos next door for about the last time. We listed our house in June. We didn’t have people pounding down our door. For whatever reason, the area in which we were just doesn’t pull a high premium for a home. Sigh. We FINALLY got an offer in September. It wasn’t awesome. We had lowered our price several times and this offer came in even lower. Not awesome. We accepted and began the process. We had no where to go. We hadn’t been able to find a house we wanted to buy and renting wasn’t really on our minds. We had the inspection and they had small things to quibble about. Fine. But I was in full panic mode. I was literally on my knees in our schoolroom crying because I was terrified of letting go of our home that we knew EVERYTHING about and also knew how much money we were spending monthly. I panicked and didn’t follow God’s call. I know in my heart of hearts I disobeyed. I called our realtor and she was AMAZING and got us out of the deal. I brought apology gifts to both the buyers and our realtor. We put it all behind us. I had such relief and truly felt that our decision was solid. Blessings even seemed to pour on us for staying! We met wonderful new neighbors, from Texas no less, and we struck up a great friendship. But slowly, our disobedience became apparent. The issues directly next door became far worse. I was disturbed regularly and couldn’t quite place my finger on it. For lack of a better word, I had a distressed spirit. I had failed my test. I did not give God my home. I held onto the possession and did NOT trust in Him for our next step. I was not well. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I was wrung out.
2020. Lol. Do I even need to type anything? Seriously though, life was dark and getting darker. It was time to go. I felt it in every single fiber of my being. We needed to leave that house and give ourselves over to the Lord’s plan. Our amazing friends who had just moved in were leaving to go back to AR. We were crushed. We really didn’t have anything to keep us there other than our love for our home. The market was SUPER hot. Homes were moving quickly and offers were coming in ABOVE asking price and sometimes there were bidding wars! We did not fall into that category BUT we did receive an offer within 30 days and for full asking price. They did negotiate some closing money but our realtor brought the buyers and really made the deal work. They gave us 45 days to move. It was a huge blessing.
We were seeing house after house after house. Nothing was up to snuff or the prices were just so ridiculous that we would laugh. It was one giant disappointment after another. It was wearing us all down. We had pretty much resolved to find a rental but even that was proving difficult to secure. One night on our way home from a disappointing journey to Selma and Muncie to check out some homes, my Realtor app goes off for a rental. It is in our price range, mostly met the square footage requirement, and it happened to be in less than a mile from our current house! It was literally around the corner from my mom! It was also owned by an actually rental company which is a HUGE plus in my book. We discussed it and went back and forth. We knew we needed to apply right away or else we would probably lose the option of that home. So we made the decision to apply and lose our app fee if we decided against that rental. BEST DECISION EVER. That home popping up when it did and where it did was no fluke. God did that. He knew our desperation and He fulfilled our need. Pretty amazing. We were the first to apply. The home was supposed to be available for move in on 10/7 and we were set to close on our home 10/9 plus we had until the 14th to be out. Timing was PERFECT. Again, a God thing for sure.
Shortly after applying and seeing for ourselves that the previous tenants moved out, we were told the earliest we could have the home would be 10/21! YIKES! That was one week too late! Crazy thing happened. I never once thought that we wouldn’t get the house on the 7th. I have NO idea why I felt extreme peace and assurance but I did. Aaron, on the other hand, did NOT share my feelings and was preparing for us to possibly ask for an additional week or even camp out at my Grandma’s for a week. But God had it all worked out. We got word around the end of September that 10/7 would be just fine! Wahoo! Once again, God provided for us!
Two days before getting the keys to the rental, the company sent us a comprehensive photo listing detailing EVERYTHING about the home. This was a HUGE shock….but the home came with a FULL UNFINISHED BASEMENT!!!! We were completely prepared to squeeze ourselves and stuff into a 3200 sq ft home with only a 2 car garage but the BONUS basement was AMAZING!!! Again, God TOTALLY knew what we truly needed and provided it to us! It literally added nearly 1600 sq ft EXTRA for storage and room for our exercise equipment!
Now to talk about how God showed up in our times of need DURING our move. We made 21 trips with a U-Haul trailer to the new home. Yes. 21. It was exhausting but from sun up to sun down, we moved things. The kids were tremendous helpers and it will be an experience they will never forget. We had absolutely the most amazing weather during this week in October. We had sun and warm temperatures. Toward the end of the move, there was a day that threatened rain. Thankfully, we were mostly moved out and was able to back the trailer into the garage at Honey Creek to load and by the time we made it to the other house, the rain had stopped! Huge blessing!
I must share one more amazing time God showed up for us. It was late one evening and we were loaded up for the final trip of that day at Honey Creek and we still had to head to the new house to unload. We were bone tired. Oh so weary we were. Tears were in my eyes and many of the kids as well. Exhaustion threatened to overtake us all. Aaron and I were in the front of the van getting ready to pull away and we BOTH saw the shooting star in the sky! The odds of seeing a shooting star are pretty low but compound that with BOTH of us seeing it, and you’ve got yourself a definite God moment! It was a much needed reassurance that we were doing the right thing.
Our move was a significant change in our lives. We will forever love and miss our home on Honey Creek Drive. We know that God wants us somewhere else. We are praying and doing our best to be patient and wait for the Lord to direct our steps for our next forever home.