God's hand

“God, I really, really, really want this house. But I only want it if YOU want it. But I really want it. So, if it’s not the house for us, please take away my desire and longing to want it. Or close some doors right in our faces. But…but if it is the house for us, please let everything go perfectly so that we can buy our house. Because there’s a whole lot of stuff that can go wrong…mainly with selling our house.”

That was pretty much my prayer o’ summer. I couldn’t pray for God to simply slam doors in our faces where we couldn’t get the house. I couldn’t. But I did pray that if this wasn’t the house for us, that we would lose some of our fervor and passion in desiring it.

I prayed because it was a big house, a beautiful house. One with everything we wanted but didn’t think we could have at this time.

We hadn’t been looking at houses. Well, we’d been “window shopping,” but we window shop for a while. We weren’t even expecting to seriously even consider moving until at least next year.

So when Kyle showed me this house, I kind of sighed. Because I just knew. I looked at him and said, “You know we’re going to buy this house, don’t you?”

Because we weren’t seriously looking. Because everything started falling into place so quickly. Because, even though it felt like forever to me, how we got into this house was divine intervention.

We caught our seller two days before he planned to put his house on the market. Because he didn’t have to pay a realtor because he had a buyer -- us, he gave us a great deal.

Our (now old) house was placed on the market the week after we found the new house. It was the seventh one in our small neighborhood (of about 30 houses) to go on the market. It was also the first one to sell. We had a buyer in six weeks.

SIX WEEKS.

Our friends who have recently undergone the buying/selling process told us to be patient. That their houses had been on the market for over 100 days. There’s a girl in our Sunday School class whose house is still on the market – and she put it on there in May.

It’s mind-blowing how God has answered prayers in such a short amount of time. And in His time. Our purchase agreement with the seller went to Aug. 31. We started panicking around Aug. 26 because our closing went a little haywire, and we were anxious that we would not be able to close by that date. Oh, and it didn’t help that our seller is moving to Pennsylvania and getting married this weekend.

We closed Aug. 31.

But, technically, we moved in Aug. 19. The seller had allowed us to move in early, and, thanks to him and the help of fourteen other friends (yep), we had all of our earthly possessions (mainly) moved in in an hour and a half. You need some gratefulness in your life? Have more than a dozen of your friends give up their Friday night to help YOU move. I nearly cried at their generosity.

And there’ve been so many others who have helped paint, who have helped organize, who have given house-warming gifts to help us get moved in efficiently and quickly. And it’s now home. No decorations yet on the wall, but it is definitely home.

It was so hard to let God have complete control – but I quickly learned I had no control in this situation. Despite my NUMEROUS efforts, I did not sell my house – my realtor did. I couldn’t control home inspectors or appraisers or banks.

This was a learning experience this summer, to just let God take control. It was a struggle, and it’s still a struggle, but it was something I needed to go through. I realized it then, and I see the benefits now – and only one of them is a material possession.

It’s been a year of chaos, that’s for sure, but chaos does not always have to be bad. Sometimes, it’s really, really nice.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. – James 1:17