How thankful I am for my sovereign God. Without Him, I'd be a mess as I walked through those dark valleys. When I'm pressed in, He's there. When I sit down, He's there. When I stand up or lie down, He's there. I can't hide from Him. He is acquainted with ALL my ways. He discerns my thoughts from afar. He searches out my path. He knows the words on my tongue before I say them. He hems me in before and behind. His hand will lead me and HOLD ME. The darkness is not dark to Him. The night is bright as the day. He formed me, knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise Him! I am fearfully and wonderfully made. He saw my unformed substance and in His book were written every one of them... the days that were formed for me, as yet there was none of them. He searches me and knows my heart. He tries me and knows my thoughts. He is worth praising. You, God, take what the enemy means for evil and uses it for good. I trust that and know Your name will be praised when all is said and done. I'm not forgotten. You are faithful forever and perfect in love. You are love. You are the Healer, Comforter, Friend, and my God. You are my Sustainer and my Redeemer. You are more powerful than the worst disease. You have power over all circumstances. I can trust You no matter what comes. You are so much more than my brain can even comprehend. God, whatever comes my way I know I can trust You. You hold all in Your hands and I can trust You will take my fears, hopes, dreams, and plans and use them for Your glory. I praise You as a God who doesn't protect me from hard times, but sanctifies me through those hard times. I praise You that I can see beyond myself and love on others even in the midst of pain and darkness. I praise You as a God who is worth it. I praise You as a God who never fails and never lets go. I praise You as a God who comforts and heals. I praise You as a God who knows our strengths and our weaknesses and gives us Your strength when we feel we can't go on. I praise You that You are greater than my fears and You are greater than death. You are greater than our happiest day and You are greater than our worst day. You are my Hope. You are my Abba, Father. You are my Strength. You are joy and peace. Your plan wasn't for a fallen world. You wanted so much more. Thank you for not abandoning us in the garden. Thank you the plan of Your Son. Thank you for a relationship with You. Thank you for the trials and for the good times. Thank you for carrying our yoke. Thank you for being a God who is trustworthy and who will always keep Your promises. Thank You that we get to praise Your name in the midst of trials and on top of the highest mountains. You are my sovereign God and are Sovereign Over Us.
Showing posts with label God's timing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's timing. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Goodbye ol' house!
I can't believe it's been since Easter that I last posted. However, when I stop to think about all that the past 2 (almost 3) months have entailed, I'm reminded of why I haven't posted since Easter!
I crack up when I look back at my last post about thinking I would have time to sit before we moved. Let's just say that nothing went as planned. Daddy T and I stayed up until 1-2 in the morning every night that week packing up last minute things and cleaning barely got done. But that's another post...one I'll be sure to write because I never want to move again. Ever. Never ever.
But we can't get to the moving part of the story until I write about the whole house ordeal. I'll warn you that this will be a long post. However, I want to keep it for my blog journal book, so I'm writing it mostly for my benefit to remind me of God's hand at work during this entire time.
We had our house on the market from the end of October until the end of February. That's not bad at all, considering nobody looks at houses between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had lots of showings, most of the time there were 4 a week. I hated the last minute calls of "We'd like to show your house in 5 minutes." I always looked around my house, stressed, and then asked for 30 minutes after seeing toys everywhere and lunch on the table that was in the process of being eaten. More often than not, that lunch got dumped and I'd buy them a more relaxing lunch because I didn't have time to let them eat it at home. Then we'd wander around aimlessly waiting for the showings to be over.
The couple that bought our house were actually from New York and they were our 3rd showing on the same day. I was headed home after a showing when the realty company called and asked if they could show my house in 10 minutes. Since I wasn't home yet and it was already clean from the previous showings, I happily agreed. I'm glad I said "yes" now!
The day they saw the house was a Friday. I had a home party to go to that night at a friends house and on my way there, I felt a huge burden to turn off the radio and pray. So I did. I prayed all the way there and I prayed all the way back home. I was very specific in my prayer and expected God to answer in every way. I prayed that He would move the hearts of one of the couples who had looked at the house and that they would see that it would be perfect for them. I then prayed that He would let us hear from our realtor that an offer was made before we went to take my parents to look at the foreclosed house we really wanted.
As the next day inched closer to the time when we were to meet the realtor, (my dad is a certified electrician and was going to check out the electrical problem HUD said our house we were interested in had) I began to come to an understanding that perhaps this just wasn't the time that God wanted us to move. I was a little disappointed, but I knew that God's timing was always absolutely 100% perfect and I looked forward to the story I could tell about His faithfulness. Right as we were about to leave, Daddy T's phone rang and it was the realtor. He was confirming our meeting time and......he said WE HAD AN OFFER!!! I cried and was so excited because I had specifically asked God for this. I didn't care whether we took their offer or they took ours at this point. All I cared was that I had confirmation that God still heard me, still cared, and as minor as it was, He did care about our house (something I struggled with because it was a perfectly good house, served our needs, and was something that some people didn't even have).
We ended up counter offering for 3 days and finally came to the last offer, which we accepted. The house was sold with no work needing to be done and it was a clean offer. Now came the fun part of getting serious about our new house.
We had seen a house in Daddy T's subdivision in which he grew up in (and his parents still live in) and really wanted to live in that subdivision but knew we couldn't afford most of the houses in there. We didn't want our house payment to be any more for than our old house because we didn't want to be in trouble if the economy completely tanked. I guess you can say that we wanted to play it safe. We had seen a foreclosed home pop up on realtor and sent it to our realtor so that we could look at it. We really wanted a foreclosed home because you could get a lot more for your money if you didn't mind doing just a little work. Since we like projects and making the house have our personality, we wanted an older house. We had looked at quite a few HUD (foreclosed) homes but they were all destroyed and would take a lot more money to fix because the owners had completely messed them up. So we weren't too hopeful when we saw this one, but we were still hoping we were wrong.
When our realtor opened the door and we saw the house inside, it was perfect. The owners had just picked up, took a few random things (like a fan and garage lights, bathroom mirror, etc), but left most things in tact. They had done a lot of upgrades in the house so it looked really good. Of course, there are some things we want and will change, but they did a great job trying to update it. Anyway, we knew it was the house for us. Neither one of us needed to ask the other one their thoughts because we both knew. It had a huge back yard for the kids, a duck pond across the street, access to the lake, and was 1/2 mile from Daddy T's parents. They have restrictions in the neighborhood to keep it looking good and so that people can't make their yards look bad! We liked that and liked that many people around us are older and the nicest neighbors you could have. (Our neighbor mowed our yard while we were on vacation!)
We wanted to make an offer on the house, but we weren't yet comfortable with the price since it was a bit higher than we wanted to pay. It was a great deal, but not exactly what we wanted to pay. So we kept watching it and praying that no one would take it if it was to be our house and that if it wasn't our house that it would sell so that we would know right away. We needed clarity.
Back on the old house, days were ticking towards moving day. We had to have inspections done on the house and appraisals. It just so happened that the day that the home inspection was to be done (which we didn't expect a problem since the house was only 6 years old, we had had it the entire 6 years and kept it maintained), I was at a Precept class where I was going to be spending 3 entire days studying the Bible. I firmly believe that Satan knew that too and wanted to trip me up and I'm so thankful that I was in the class or I just might have fretted and became anxious. It's no shock to me that I got a call from the realtor right before our afternoon class began on the first day saying that the couple wanted to terminate their contract because of a water leak problem in the master bath. We were stunned because there is no leak and never has been a leak and we would definitely know if there was. The temptation was there for me to be upset and worried, but I calmly called Daddy T, told him what was happening, and he was mad! I kept telling him what I was studying about the Lord in Ezra and how the Lord stirred up hearts to do as He pleases and He could very well stir up the hearts of the people who had a contract on our house so they could see that a mistake had been made.
On the realtor front, their realtor called ours to get their earnest money back. Our realtor refused until he got a certified letter from the plumber saying that there was really a water leak. After a lengthy conversation, it came out that their realtor had actually brought his brother to do the inspection and he was only a contractor, not a licensed inspector. Plans were made to bring a plumber out that Saturday. (We grew suspicious that the person would even be a real plumber because who can just say "Hey, I'll bring a plumber by at 10:00 on Saturday without even checking with the plumber!)
All this time, Daddy T was frustrated with the fact that these people were lying about a problem with the house when there was no problem. He didn't expect them to change their minds. I did. I actually thought it was funny because I really believed that this would not terminate the contract.
Saturday rolls around and our realtor has told us that Daddy T should stay because he had every right to be in his house and follow them around and ask questions. Since he had nothing to lose, that's what he did. Turns out that the "plumber" was once again a brother or brother-in-law contractor (who gave us his business card and told us he'd be glad to help us with anything we needed.....which we politely declined after hearing what they thought was a leak!) and the "leak" in the master bath was not a leak at all. They said that when they flushed the toilet, turned the water on in the sink, shower, and tub at the same time---that water came up from the floor. First of all, there would be water stains in the garage if that were true, but Daddy T had also just tiled it and told them that would be near impossible. Then he told them all the layers that were between the floor and the tile. The realtor and his contractor were puzzled and Daddy T showed them the shower door....water comes out of the shower door at the bottom when you open it after you've been it. You see, that was the one day that we had a showing and we were in a hurry to get out of the house that I didn't wipe off the floor from when we all had our showers and opened the door. Yes....that would be what they considered "a leak."
Their realtor told Daddy T that his clients will be glad to hear the news and that they may still want the house. That night, the contract was back on with one stipulation...we had to add the stripping to the bottom of the shower door so it wouldn't leak water when you opened it after you had a shower. We agreed and the contract continued.
Looking at our new house again that night, we saw that the price had just dropped on it and it was now less than what we were paying for our old house. They said that it had intermittent electricity, which was completely wrong. After Dad looked at it that day, he couldn't figure out why they would say that because nothing looked wrong to him. Turns out that whoever did the HUD test, hooked his generator to the garage instead of outside so that would give you intermittent electricity. We were hoping Dad was right and that we were getting a perfect house at a steal of a price.
That night that the contract was deemed good, the new house we wanted had a price drop (which I just mentioned). We shot an email off to our mortgage lady (which we were supposed to meet with the next day) and she told us to go ahead and make an offer because she saw nothing that would stop us from getting the loan. So we called our realtor first thing, got an offer in, and it was accepted! We were thrilled. (We later learned that there were 3 other offers on it waiting in case ours fell through. Once couple liked the house and neighborhood so much that they bought the house across the street....it was a little awkward to meet them!)
The other part was that our mortgage lady (who is the best) had 6 weeks to close on a HUD. We were told it was nearly impossible for someone to close so fast on one but we didn't want to stay at Daddy T's parents house for weeks on end and didn't want to get an apartment. Nor did we want to buy it before our house closed, just in case it fell through at the table. Thankfully, all went beautifully and even the HUD lawyers said that our mortgage lady was great and they knew her by name because of the many times she called and checked in with them! We closed on our house in College Nation, which took all of 30 minutes. We drove 1-1/2 hours for 30 minutes and then rushed back to meet the locksmith because they don't give you keys to your house at HUD. Your gift for buying a HUD is having your whole house broken into and then re-keyed! Nothing says "welcome home" like that!
Through all of this house process, we could see God's orchestration and it was absolutely beautiful. Now that we've been in our new house for 2 months, it's still a work in progress. There is so much we want to do, but we just do a little at a time. The outside jungle is a job for the fall when it is much cooler. I always get chills when I retell the story of our house. Several friends of ours walked through this with us and they got to see the whole thing played out, too. It truly is a house that we would have not gotten any other way if we had not acted in God's perfect timing. His timing is way more perfect than mine.
I crack up when I look back at my last post about thinking I would have time to sit before we moved. Let's just say that nothing went as planned. Daddy T and I stayed up until 1-2 in the morning every night that week packing up last minute things and cleaning barely got done. But that's another post...one I'll be sure to write because I never want to move again. Ever. Never ever.
But we can't get to the moving part of the story until I write about the whole house ordeal. I'll warn you that this will be a long post. However, I want to keep it for my blog journal book, so I'm writing it mostly for my benefit to remind me of God's hand at work during this entire time.
We had our house on the market from the end of October until the end of February. That's not bad at all, considering nobody looks at houses between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had lots of showings, most of the time there were 4 a week. I hated the last minute calls of "We'd like to show your house in 5 minutes." I always looked around my house, stressed, and then asked for 30 minutes after seeing toys everywhere and lunch on the table that was in the process of being eaten. More often than not, that lunch got dumped and I'd buy them a more relaxing lunch because I didn't have time to let them eat it at home. Then we'd wander around aimlessly waiting for the showings to be over.
The couple that bought our house were actually from New York and they were our 3rd showing on the same day. I was headed home after a showing when the realty company called and asked if they could show my house in 10 minutes. Since I wasn't home yet and it was already clean from the previous showings, I happily agreed. I'm glad I said "yes" now!
The day they saw the house was a Friday. I had a home party to go to that night at a friends house and on my way there, I felt a huge burden to turn off the radio and pray. So I did. I prayed all the way there and I prayed all the way back home. I was very specific in my prayer and expected God to answer in every way. I prayed that He would move the hearts of one of the couples who had looked at the house and that they would see that it would be perfect for them. I then prayed that He would let us hear from our realtor that an offer was made before we went to take my parents to look at the foreclosed house we really wanted.
As the next day inched closer to the time when we were to meet the realtor, (my dad is a certified electrician and was going to check out the electrical problem HUD said our house we were interested in had) I began to come to an understanding that perhaps this just wasn't the time that God wanted us to move. I was a little disappointed, but I knew that God's timing was always absolutely 100% perfect and I looked forward to the story I could tell about His faithfulness. Right as we were about to leave, Daddy T's phone rang and it was the realtor. He was confirming our meeting time and......he said WE HAD AN OFFER!!! I cried and was so excited because I had specifically asked God for this. I didn't care whether we took their offer or they took ours at this point. All I cared was that I had confirmation that God still heard me, still cared, and as minor as it was, He did care about our house (something I struggled with because it was a perfectly good house, served our needs, and was something that some people didn't even have).
We ended up counter offering for 3 days and finally came to the last offer, which we accepted. The house was sold with no work needing to be done and it was a clean offer. Now came the fun part of getting serious about our new house.
We had seen a house in Daddy T's subdivision in which he grew up in (and his parents still live in) and really wanted to live in that subdivision but knew we couldn't afford most of the houses in there. We didn't want our house payment to be any more for than our old house because we didn't want to be in trouble if the economy completely tanked. I guess you can say that we wanted to play it safe. We had seen a foreclosed home pop up on realtor and sent it to our realtor so that we could look at it. We really wanted a foreclosed home because you could get a lot more for your money if you didn't mind doing just a little work. Since we like projects and making the house have our personality, we wanted an older house. We had looked at quite a few HUD (foreclosed) homes but they were all destroyed and would take a lot more money to fix because the owners had completely messed them up. So we weren't too hopeful when we saw this one, but we were still hoping we were wrong.
When our realtor opened the door and we saw the house inside, it was perfect. The owners had just picked up, took a few random things (like a fan and garage lights, bathroom mirror, etc), but left most things in tact. They had done a lot of upgrades in the house so it looked really good. Of course, there are some things we want and will change, but they did a great job trying to update it. Anyway, we knew it was the house for us. Neither one of us needed to ask the other one their thoughts because we both knew. It had a huge back yard for the kids, a duck pond across the street, access to the lake, and was 1/2 mile from Daddy T's parents. They have restrictions in the neighborhood to keep it looking good and so that people can't make their yards look bad! We liked that and liked that many people around us are older and the nicest neighbors you could have. (Our neighbor mowed our yard while we were on vacation!)
We wanted to make an offer on the house, but we weren't yet comfortable with the price since it was a bit higher than we wanted to pay. It was a great deal, but not exactly what we wanted to pay. So we kept watching it and praying that no one would take it if it was to be our house and that if it wasn't our house that it would sell so that we would know right away. We needed clarity.
Back on the old house, days were ticking towards moving day. We had to have inspections done on the house and appraisals. It just so happened that the day that the home inspection was to be done (which we didn't expect a problem since the house was only 6 years old, we had had it the entire 6 years and kept it maintained), I was at a Precept class where I was going to be spending 3 entire days studying the Bible. I firmly believe that Satan knew that too and wanted to trip me up and I'm so thankful that I was in the class or I just might have fretted and became anxious. It's no shock to me that I got a call from the realtor right before our afternoon class began on the first day saying that the couple wanted to terminate their contract because of a water leak problem in the master bath. We were stunned because there is no leak and never has been a leak and we would definitely know if there was. The temptation was there for me to be upset and worried, but I calmly called Daddy T, told him what was happening, and he was mad! I kept telling him what I was studying about the Lord in Ezra and how the Lord stirred up hearts to do as He pleases and He could very well stir up the hearts of the people who had a contract on our house so they could see that a mistake had been made.
On the realtor front, their realtor called ours to get their earnest money back. Our realtor refused until he got a certified letter from the plumber saying that there was really a water leak. After a lengthy conversation, it came out that their realtor had actually brought his brother to do the inspection and he was only a contractor, not a licensed inspector. Plans were made to bring a plumber out that Saturday. (We grew suspicious that the person would even be a real plumber because who can just say "Hey, I'll bring a plumber by at 10:00 on Saturday without even checking with the plumber!)
All this time, Daddy T was frustrated with the fact that these people were lying about a problem with the house when there was no problem. He didn't expect them to change their minds. I did. I actually thought it was funny because I really believed that this would not terminate the contract.
Saturday rolls around and our realtor has told us that Daddy T should stay because he had every right to be in his house and follow them around and ask questions. Since he had nothing to lose, that's what he did. Turns out that the "plumber" was once again a brother or brother-in-law contractor (who gave us his business card and told us he'd be glad to help us with anything we needed.....which we politely declined after hearing what they thought was a leak!) and the "leak" in the master bath was not a leak at all. They said that when they flushed the toilet, turned the water on in the sink, shower, and tub at the same time---that water came up from the floor. First of all, there would be water stains in the garage if that were true, but Daddy T had also just tiled it and told them that would be near impossible. Then he told them all the layers that were between the floor and the tile. The realtor and his contractor were puzzled and Daddy T showed them the shower door....water comes out of the shower door at the bottom when you open it after you've been it. You see, that was the one day that we had a showing and we were in a hurry to get out of the house that I didn't wipe off the floor from when we all had our showers and opened the door. Yes....that would be what they considered "a leak."
Their realtor told Daddy T that his clients will be glad to hear the news and that they may still want the house. That night, the contract was back on with one stipulation...we had to add the stripping to the bottom of the shower door so it wouldn't leak water when you opened it after you had a shower. We agreed and the contract continued.
Looking at our new house again that night, we saw that the price had just dropped on it and it was now less than what we were paying for our old house. They said that it had intermittent electricity, which was completely wrong. After Dad looked at it that day, he couldn't figure out why they would say that because nothing looked wrong to him. Turns out that whoever did the HUD test, hooked his generator to the garage instead of outside so that would give you intermittent electricity. We were hoping Dad was right and that we were getting a perfect house at a steal of a price.
That night that the contract was deemed good, the new house we wanted had a price drop (which I just mentioned). We shot an email off to our mortgage lady (which we were supposed to meet with the next day) and she told us to go ahead and make an offer because she saw nothing that would stop us from getting the loan. So we called our realtor first thing, got an offer in, and it was accepted! We were thrilled. (We later learned that there were 3 other offers on it waiting in case ours fell through. Once couple liked the house and neighborhood so much that they bought the house across the street....it was a little awkward to meet them!)
The other part was that our mortgage lady (who is the best) had 6 weeks to close on a HUD. We were told it was nearly impossible for someone to close so fast on one but we didn't want to stay at Daddy T's parents house for weeks on end and didn't want to get an apartment. Nor did we want to buy it before our house closed, just in case it fell through at the table. Thankfully, all went beautifully and even the HUD lawyers said that our mortgage lady was great and they knew her by name because of the many times she called and checked in with them! We closed on our house in College Nation, which took all of 30 minutes. We drove 1-1/2 hours for 30 minutes and then rushed back to meet the locksmith because they don't give you keys to your house at HUD. Your gift for buying a HUD is having your whole house broken into and then re-keyed! Nothing says "welcome home" like that!
Through all of this house process, we could see God's orchestration and it was absolutely beautiful. Now that we've been in our new house for 2 months, it's still a work in progress. There is so much we want to do, but we just do a little at a time. The outside jungle is a job for the fall when it is much cooler. I always get chills when I retell the story of our house. Several friends of ours walked through this with us and they got to see the whole thing played out, too. It truly is a house that we would have not gotten any other way if we had not acted in God's perfect timing. His timing is way more perfect than mine.
 |
| Goodbye ol' house. You were filled with great memories and served us well. |
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