The Move, Part 3

Before Kris and I ever built our first house, we talked about the Victoria Park neighborhood here in town. It is a community with a pool, park, tons of bike and walking paths, community activities, shops and cute homes. There are several different sections of it - Victoria Commons with the community pool, Victoria Hills with the golf course and Victoria Gardens that is the 55 and older section. You don't get nearly as much house for your money, though, so we moved on. But when it came time to rent, the boys were begging to live in Victoria Park, and we thought it would be fun to try for a temporary thing. So, the search began.

Right away we saw that there were not only no listings in Victoria Park, but there were very few rentals available that would meet our needs, period. I wondered how this was going to work out, but I kept going back to the word God spoke to my heart that we would be blessed whatever way we turned. I didn't get anxious. I was really just excited to see what God was going to do.

Every day we checked rental listings while the closing date for our house inched closer. About three weeks before closing we found a listing in Victoria Park for a townhouse and one in a different, nice neighborhood, Bent Oaks, for a three bedroom smaller home. We looked at the townhouse, and while the boys begged and Kris made a case for it, I could feel my chest constricting every time I thought about living in 1600 square feet and no yard with our three boys and a newborn. After looking at that, the 1800 square foot three bedroom home in the Bent Oaks with at least a postage stamp yard looked heavenly. I said, "Let's do it!" We had to pick something and that was the lesser of the two evils. We told the rental agent to sign us up and we made application.

About a week later, I got up in the night to feed Susanna and was thinking about the dream I had just woken up from. In my dream, I was wrestling with the steering wheel of the van, trying to turn into the Victoria Hills neighborhood. As I drove past it, I said, "Okay, God, if you want us to let go of the Bent Oaks house, we will. I just need you to make it clear to me." I couldn't make sense of it, but I knew it was a dream with a word. Kris was tossing around next to me, so I said, "Can't sleep?" He said no, he was thinking about the house. I wasn't ready to talk about my dream, so I went back to sleep. The next morning I said, "Okay, I don't want to muddy the waters, and I don't know what to make of it, but here's what I dreamed last night." After I told him he looked at me and said, "Okay, what do we do?"  I didn't know. There still weren't any listings in Victoria Commons, there had never been one in Victoria Hills and the Realtor for the Bent Oaks house was holding the house off the market for us until we signed the lease.

Back up three days before. I hear Kris at the computer saying, "What?! How did this get away from me? There's a listing in Victoria Hills that's been on here for three days. I've checked every day. How did I miss this?" He called on the listing, left a message with the Realtor, and talked to the receptionist who said the listing wasn't really available yet and wouldn't be ready until the 20th. We were closing on the 15th. The next day he looked again, and the listing wasn't listed anymore.

The morning of November 4th, eleven days before closing, after getting everyone to school, I sat down on the couch and through my tears said, "God! I know You have a plan. I know You're speaking. Help me to understand what I know You're saying to me. We need a house. We need to get this worked out. I don't doubt that You're active in this. I'm not afraid. But I would like this settled." Exhaustion with new baby and my need for security were tag teaming me, and I was spent. I felt the Lord saying, "What did you ask me for?" and taking me to Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Victoria Park. I asked Him for Victoria Park. But there were no listings in Victoria Park!?

So, I texted Kris what I had a few days before read on my counter calendar:

"It's never a question of whether or not God will bless you - it's a matter of having your faith stretched out enough to receive the incredible measure of goodness God wants to pour into your life!" 

and then: "Sitting here stretching out my faith net to capture God's goodness for us. He's been showing off for us all along and I'm anticipating another show for this house."

K: "What should we do, what are you leaning towards?"

Me: "I keep thinking that we've asked for Victoria Park so we need to give Him room to drop that blessing in our laps. Every time I start to think maybe He's got a different plan for us I have the thought, 'Yes, but we asked for Victoria Park.'"

K: I know and the boys really want it too. Should you call (the Bent Oaks Realtor) and tell her we need some time to think about this?

Me: "Honestly, I feel chicken about calling her. Would you do it this time? :)))"

Because he loves me so well, he called the Bent Oaks Realtor and told her we were going to pass on the house. She was ticked, just as we knew she would be, which is why I asked him to call her. :)

So, now we are down to only the townhouse as an option. My eye started twitching just thinking about it.

To be continued...