moved.

Rewind the clock about 7 months.  We’ve got a flat tire, and I’m looking around at options to see how much it’d cost to simply make the van “drivable”.  In the midst of this, my wife calls me to say a house she really loved has come down in price recently, and she wants to know if we could go look at it together.  I will pause here to tell you – looking at houses is definitely NOT a hobby of mine.  But I love my wife.  She bears with me during playoff season, and I walk through a house once in a great while.  I mustered up as much cynical love as possible to say, “Sure hun, let’s find out how much we owe to get new tires, and if it’s not too depressing, we’ll go walk through a house with no expectations.” 🙂  I figured I was off the hook. 

Through the kindness of a church friend, we had 2 used but good condition tires installed free of charge.  His actual words – “Go take your family out for lunch.”  Yes sir.  But little did he know the wheels he was used to set in motion.

We looked at the house.  I’ll admit, it was pretty sweet.  Almost twice as much room.  A dining room.  Sidewalks for the girls.  Neighbors that were extra neighborly.  Closets as big as small rooms.  A fireplace.  But to try and sell our house in this market?   To try and increase our mortgage even slightly on our fixed one-income budget?  Again, with cynicism, I agreed we would put our house on the market, and see if this house might be work-out-able. 

Time passed.  Our contingency offer expired, and they wouldn’t sign a second one.  Someone else made an offer and they accepted.  They were working toward closing.

That closing never happened, and the house was back on the market.  Sarah was leaving for the Philippines.  Maybe when she got back to the States, we’d figure out some way to put fliers up around town, you know, really ramp up our sales techniques.  But while she was gone, someone wanted to walk through.  Decided we may as well show even though it’s probably another “no thanks”.  Then an offer came. 

Picture taken in early Fall 2010

We began working it all out on paper, and honestly didn’t know exactly where the dust would settle.  But here we are, paying $10 less each month for our mortgage, for soooo much more house.  (Interest rates CAN be your friend.)  Still a lot of unpacking to do.  Still quite a few things on our lists to make it “home”.  Definitely some projects around the house.  But we still can’t believe how it has all come together. 

I hear stories like this, and people say “But we prayed, and then…”  I will not claim to bend the heart of God that He should act in our favor.  But I also cannot deny that we gave every step of this, including our financial frustrations from the very beginning, in His hands.  If anything, maybe he’s a bit taken by our kids.  They are pretty stinkin’ cute.  Thanks God.