I really should be finishing my chores.
But I’m tired and my back hurts and this story has been bumping around in my head for weeks and I have to get it out! Seriously it’s like the old screen saver where the words would “hit” the edge of the screen and begin travel in another direction.
Anyway, on to the story.
Sometime back in early spring we started working on projects around our house. These weren’t just any projects, these were some serious back burner projects. Things that needed done but weren’t urgent and besides, who wants to spend time and money on home repairs when you could be out traveling or visiting with friends?! Honestly, the whole “check items off the back burner list” project was never intentional and we really didn’t even realize we were doing it until late summer.
It all started with the landscaping in the front yard. Just short of a decade ago, when I moved to this humble abode with my new hubs, there were beautiful tulips in front of our house that came up every year. They were joined by overflowing hostas and a bountiful piling of river rocks. But time (and a serious lack of weeding on our part) took its toll. We tried to transplant the hostas but they sadly did not survive the move. And then this year I noticed that instead of a dozen beautiful tulips we had two lousy sprouts. So it was time to make some improvements, but flowers are expensive and again, there are others things I’d rather spend my money! But I broke down and purchased four tickseed plants to replace the hopeless tulips. Such as it is with any home improvement job, these turned into a lot more work than I anticipated. But finally the task was accomplished and I was rewarded with this.
They don’t look like much in this picture but they eventually developed some lovely yellow flowers!
I figured I call it quits after that, but then my neighbor started redoing her landscaping and in her front yard sat several buckets of hostas just calling my name. She no longer wanted them and I had not punished myself enough so I dug up all the rocks from the front of the bed, transplanted the hostas and added all the rock back in. Anyway, enough with the landscaping story. Suffice it to say, it looked way better when I was done.
From there we ended up making some repairs to the fence. Again, not planned, but when we had some extra money on a few paychecks, we thought “Why not!” Again, lots of work but good results.
Next we made a random stop at Home Depot and picked up a new faucet for the kitchen sink. We got it installed and also repaired the drippy pipe under the sink.
I’m pretty sure there were a couple of other projects that we also tackled at this time, but much as happened since then and the less time consuming items have been pushed out of my memory bank.
At this point you are probably wondering what on earth makes this an interesting story!
Well, to understand that you also need to know that during this time we were dreaming of our dream home or rather our dream property. For some time we have wanted to move to the country. Own some land, raise some animals, grow some food. I’m not looking to go off grid or anything (although I’m sure the hubs would!) but we really just wanted more room to grow our hobbies: most of which involve being outside.
So while we repaired we dreamt.
We logged hundreds of miles driving around looking for places. We scoured the internet for options. At one point we even went so far as to talk to the bank. But honestly, we didn’t really expect anything to come of it. It mostly just gave us something to do on Sunday afternoons!
Then one day I realized that we were expending all this time and energy on something that we had never taken the time to pray about. What if this wasn’t what God had planned for us? What if he was calling us to learn contentment in a home that felt as if it was just getting smaller and smaller? So we stopped. We stopped taking Sunday drives, we stopped scouring Zillow and we really settled into a place of contentment.
Then it happened!
One day I opened my email to find a listing from Zillow. I had never taken the time to unsubscribe from their mailing list. So I clicked “just for the fun of it” and it snowballed from there. The next thing we know we are scheduling appointments with the realtor and the bank. The thing is, this property was up for auction. Talk about pressure! But this time, we started praying before we acted. We prayed and prayed and prayed! We prayed before every decision and every appointment. We asked friends to pray. We even had our pastor and his wife come to the property with us to pray for God’s will to be done. Honestly, we had never prayed this much about anything in our marriage! And boy did we get to see God work. Every single detail began to fall into place and finally we made the decision to bid on the property. We ran our numbers a dozen times and finally settled on a top dollar.
August 27th arrived. We should have been nervous but instead we were both experiencing such peace from God. We knew we had covered this matter in so much prayer that whatever the outcome was, it would no doubt be God’s plan for our family.
We ended up bidding against two or three other families. Honestly, it’s all a bit of a blur! The auctioneer’s call for an opening bid was over our budget, but praise God, no one took that first offer. So the number kept getting lower and lower until finally another couple started the bidding. The battle was on and as the hubs did the bidding I stood there praying for God’s will to be done.
And finally the bidding was finished. Sold! to us!!!! We couldn’t believe it! We had won, exactly at the amount we couldn’t go over. Oh sure, getting it for 20-30K less would have been great but that just wasn’t the case.
I’m thankful for the hub’s co-worker who was there and quick enough to catch the moment on “film”. Honestly, I was so overwhelmed with emotion I don’t even remember half of it! My (step) dad stood with us for morale support, you know, since he’s seasoned bidder.
So let me sum it up, even though we are way past the point of keeping a long story short. God started providing for repairs on our current house because he knew a new house was in our future, even when we had quit searching. He provided us with the time, money and resources to accomplish these tasks, even though it seemed we never had those things before! God also provided us with the desire of our hearts. Not on our time table but according to his perfect will. I’m not saying that every time you pray God will give you what you want, but I do know that every time you pray, God will answer and if you are truly asking for His will to be done, you will be at peace no matter what the outcome!
So there you have it. The beginning of our story! There are many more chapters to tell, some already complete that just need to be told and others yet waiting to happen. My prayer is that as this story unfolds it all points back to Him. I’m afraid I can not fully convey how much He has orchestrated the chapters of this book. But suffice it to say “To Him be the glory, great things He has done (and continues to do)!!
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Until next time,
Jen
Fireflies in the Night 