The Adventure Continues

God never ceases to amaze me.  As you all know (and perhaps are sick of hearing about), we are in this adventure of house-selling/building/wondering how it will all work out.  If you haven’t read the first part of the story you can CLICK HERE to read.  So we’ve been living in our awesome little apartment that I’ve come to love to pieces.  It has some quirks:  1) the bathrooms always, always, always smell like pee.  I’m pretty sure instead of cleaning them they just re-calked the base of the toilets.  No matter how hard I clean, the smell is there. But that’s ok!  2) When the neighbors do dishes or laundry or something our toilet overflows with soap suds. I know, that’s weird. Sunday I walked into the bathroom after church and there were soap suds spilling out from under the lid, out onto the floor and the bowl was full.  Hm.  3) the dishwasher doesn’t work, so we handwash all of our dishes. (not a big deal)  4) all the way around the edge of the carpet is dog hair. We don’t have a dog. (that is actually really gross to me)  Other than that, I LOVE this little place.  There is a lot of freedom that comes with apartment living. Stain on the carpet? Oh well.  No decor? No one cares.  Toilet’s full of soap?  Big deal.  We love the little deck we have that looks out onto a busy street.  Dutch and I stand out there for hours and name the colors of the cars that drive past.  We frequent the pool, Jeff walks to work every day, and I can holler at friends across the street at Starbucks if I want.  Oh and our grand total of bills this month was $45.  Tell me that isn’t beautiful.

But, in the midst of all this we still sensed God was up to something with our house.  The house that we’re building is due to finish/close on September 14th, earlier than we’d thought.  Our Corvallis house still hadn’t sold.  And even though we kept reminding ourselves that it would be ok even if we had to walk away from the new house, we kept sensing that God wanted us to press in and pray, that He was going to amaze us.

Part of the sermon from last weekend was a four-step response to fear and crises.  Worship. Wait. Walk. Watch.  (sounds cheesy, but it wasn’t) First, worship God to get your full attention on Him, not on the issue.  Wait on Him instead of acting rashly.  Then, when He gives a directive, walk in it obediently.  Finally, watch and see GOD move gloriously.  As I sat in the sermon I very clearly felt that we’d done the first three.  We’d worshiped God by surrendering the whole house thing to Him.  Then we’d waited. And waited and waited and waited.  For what felt like a long time. Then just last week we felt like we were supposed to drop the price on our Corvallis house, and then even sensed that we were supposed to pray specifically for the house to sell in two weeks (by July 21st). Only two weeks.  (The initiative to pray for that actually came from our realtor, an awesome man who loves Christ.  Jeff and I both felt that that was God prompting him.)

Then, Watch.  Ok. Watch. So even though it sounds crazy I kept feeling like we were supposed to pray that the house would sell in two weeks.  I didn’t feel like it was us giving God a deadline, but rather us stepping in line with what God wanted to do. His initiative not ours.  In fact, this probably sounds crazy but last week as I was praying one day, I very much felt like I heard God’s voice: “Your house will sell.”  It was such a clear and strong sense that it brought me to tears.  I’d felt so unsure of what even to pray, and this seemed to confirm, that for whatever crazy reason, we were supposed to pray it’d sell by July 21st.  I told my parents about the two-weeks thing and they prayed that too.  So we watched.  Nothing. But I still felt led to pray it.

For the last month  I’d purposely avoided our mortgage agent because I didn’t want to have to talk about interest-rate lock-ins or closing documents when there was still a chance we’d have to walk away from the whole thing.  On Monday some friends informed us that mortgage rates had dipped and they were refinancing.  Tuesday our other friends who are building the house across the street (amazing God story that will come soon!!) locked in their rate.  This Thursday (tomorrow) would be 60-days from our closing date, which is when we’re allowed to lock in our rate if we so choose.  Jeff and I discussed contacting our lender to lock-in tomorrow, but felt like we shouldn’t move on anything until our house sold.  So we waited. Watched.

So today came and it was just one of those days that seemed like everything was discouraging. Ministry felt discouraging.  Relationships felt discouraging. I just felt tired and discouraged, and even though I really do love our sweet apartment, I just started to wonder if I’d made up all the hearing from God stuff.  No. As I spent time with God again I felt like we had to keep praying.  In fact, I even felt like maybe I was supposed to share it on my blog, because God glorifies Himself through doing the impossible, and by revealing beforehand what He will do. But I wimped out. I didn’t want it to seem like I was giving God a deadline.

As I went through the exhausting routine of naptime, putting Dutch back in bed a hundred times and finally just getting in bed with him and holding him until he fell asleep, I just felt discouraged.  Were we crazy?  It’s not even that having a house is a huge deal, but we’d been feeling like we were following God’s steps, and yet it seemed like it was coming to a dead end in many ways.  No. Again, I felt. Must keep praying.

At 5:30pm I got a text from Jeff.  “I’m bringing a surprise home.”  I looked at the meager leftovers on the stove.  I texted back: “Is it a person?”  I sure hoped not, because we’d have nothing to feed them.  “Better.”  He sent back.  “Good.” I replied.  A while later I saw him walked up the sidewalk (love living right next door to church!), and took Heidi outside to meet him. He was on the phone, so I just silently hugged him.  After he hung up, he dug in his bag and I expected him to pull out a cookie or a soda, which is usually what he brings me as a surprise (my two indulgences). Instead he pulls out a few sheets of paper and hands them to me.  “I brought you an offer.”  He smiles.

My jaw drops. In my hand is an offer on our Corvallis house, faxed over from our realtor.  I can’t even speak I am so amazed.  You cannot tell me God is not absolutely amazing.  The day before our 60-day window began. Amazing.  Now, to be honest, it was a very low offer. And, our realtor, who we trust and respect, advised us to counter-offer. So, we are doing that tonight.  And, if for some reason the deal doesn’t go through, God is still good. I’m no longer going to wait until things are a done deal before I proclaim His greatness.  If this deal is of Him, it will happen.  If not, He has something else.  He is good.  And He holds all things in His hand.  It sounds like it’s a perfect fit for the buyer too, so I’m praying it will bless them as well.

The other cool little piece of this is that when Jeff told Joel (friend, lead pastor) about it, he said that this morning he really sensed that he was supposed to pray about this specifically for us. And he did.  How encouraging is that to his faith as well? It’s always so much bigger than our little needs and wants.  He’s writing a story that displays His glory and goodness.

So, I don’t know how this chapter ends, but this little paragraph ends with us praising God for His faithfulness…and counter-offering.  Praying for an accepted offer tomorrow. Will you join me?  Love being part of His glorious story.