Or, the last year, part 3
On a belated anniversary date tonight, my husband and I were talking about this time last year, what we were doing. Last year, we decided to get ready to move on June 8th. We didn’t really think it could happen, but like other crazy things we’ve done, we just said yes to the first step and assumed the Lord would open and close doors along the way. Step one, we say yes.
Step 2, we call a favorite neighbor and tell her, sadly, that we are leaving. Favorite neighbor grieves for the appropriate amount of time, and then asks if she can tell friends who might be interested. Within a week we had a tentative buyer. This ignited a series of ups and downs, part of which I was in Mexico for, contracts signed and lost, inspections, appraisals, repairs, and broken hearts. Which brings us to this time last year...
Step 3, (or whatever number) is the one in which we work like mad to get our house on the market with a realtor in hopes of selling it while the house-we-had-a-contract-on-and-lost was still on the market.
Reasons our house would be hard to sell: half a block from a liquor store complete with loiterers, next door to a concrete poured foundation of a house never finished/national wildlife refuge and tree sanctuary/mosquito breeding cesspool, 17 people live there and have been living there for 14 years, dinging up walls, accumulating stuff, making messes, etc. In addition, the values of houses in our part of the city were considerably less than they were when we bought it.
Reasons our house would sell: it was a great 118 year old house, well loved and recently rehabbed, huge, grand. But we just didn’t know how much it was really worth.
What we were looking for: an acre or more of land, not on septic, 3 or more bedrooms, 3 or more bathrooms, 3000 square feet or so, places to play outside, room for swing set and trampoline, bike riding, a dining room big enough for all of us to eat in, multiple places for people to be, and within 20 minutes of our local house of prayer.
The house we wanted sold the day after we painted the last wall in our beloved house the wretched color called agreeable gray. (My house walls had previously been greens and yellows and blues, one peach room, one red - colors!) It was too late. God set us up. We finished getting ready (1/2 our stuff in 2 storage units) and put it on the market. It sold in a week. For a great price. Still less than we paid for it, but enough that we could pay the realtor and still afford to buy another house.
Now, we just needed a place to live. But alas, there were no houses that fit us available. In fact, we started joking that we should market our services to people trying to sell their house. “If we get our hopes up about your house,” we would say, “we guarantee someone else will buy it.” We prayed, multiple times, God, if this isn’t for us, close the door. And He did. Over and over and over. We started to get cocky about it. We could not buy the wrong house. But we were running out of time and options. People don’t rent houses to families with 16 people (second son was away at college by this time).
Our realtors, a husband wife team we have since nominated for sainthood, began searching expired listings. Those are houses that were previously on the market but went off without being sold. They found 2 possibilities, one of which was owned by an old schoolmate. They called and asked them, do you still want to sell your house?
The rest is history. We have been amazed at God’s provision of all our needs and so many of our wants. We were blessed beyond measure. This, in a season of grief and even despair. God is faithful. He can be trusted. He is good. Oh, and the walls of our new house were already painted my colors, yellows, green, red, blue.
