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...

The Move, Part 2

Listing the house was easy. We took some pictures and put it on Zillow. We thought we might get a few calls on it, but honestly, we never thought anyone would look at it with serious intentions. I thought I had great faith when we listed it, but looking back, I was totally winging it. Imagine our surprise when almost immediately we had three calls on it.

Like I said, Susanna was coming any day, so Mama had already decided to come into town so she would definitely be there in time for the birth. Blessing #1. Have you ever tried to get a house in showing condition with three boys living in it while 9 months pregnant? Just remembering makes me want to cry. Our house hadn't looked that good in a very long time. It quivered with gratitude by the time she was finished with it. Or maybe that was just me.

We showed it to two different couples, and a Realtor showed it once. The day I was going into the hospital to have Susanna, the second couple called and made a verbal offer. Blessing #2. Have you ever had someone make an offer to buy your house when you're walking into the hospital to have your fourth child? You're far too occupied to worry about how the heck you're going to pull it off.

The people who wanted our house were a dream from beginning to end.  They were understanding about the fact that we had three children and a newborn and were flexible on closing dates and move out dates. (Yet another blessing since it took us FOREVER to get all our things out. Just a side note, we have entirely too much junk.) When we did the inspection, there was a small leak found. They were flexible about the repairman used to fix it. They fell in love with the house and committed to it and to us. A fact that gave us huge peace, since packing up and finding a rental with the possibility of the buyers backing out looming over your head would be nerve wracking.

Kris handled all the showing phone calls and dealings with the buyers. His observation: after the couple made an offer, we never had another call on the house. No unnecessary preparation and showings. Huge blessing!

Next hurdle, finding a rental.

To be continued...

The Move, Part 1

Since having a fourth child is not exciting enough, we sold our house and moved. The story is much bigger than that, so full of God's goodness and grace. To tell it well, I have to go back to August.

When Luke and Eli finished school last year, we had been told that they would be in the same class together the following school year.  The program they are in has a combined first and second grade class.  While Eli was thrilled, Luke was unsure about having his brother with him 24/7.  Right before the school year started I got a call from the teacher saying they were going to move some of the second graders in with the third grade class, and would I be okay with Luke moving up. Luke was thrilled, I was unsure because I didn't know the third grade teacher and absolutely loved the second grade teacher.

"Meet the Teacher" happened without me because that was the day I was going with Kris to make the size of our family permanent. :) Kris' mom took the boys for me. So, about two weeks into the beginning of the school year I made an appointment with Luke's teacher to meet her for the first time. The morning of the meeting Judah and I walked Eli to his class, where we stopped to chat with Eli's teacher (Luke's teacher from the year before).  She spent five minutes telling me what all she was doing to help Eli with his handwriting (which I was almost completely unable to decipher - he's a lefty) and also how proud she was of what a hard worker he was and how glad she was to have him in her class. She had a room full of students, but she gave me that gift because that's the kind of teacher she is. (By the way, Eli's handwriting is so good now, I sometimes have to ask who's is who's when looking at his and Luke's papers!) I went from there to meet Luke's teacher. I knew within fifteen seconds of meeting her that she was something special and that having her as Luke's teacher would be a gift.

I left the school overwhelmed. My boys are my heart, and it is challenging for me to leave them in someone else's care for seven hours a day.  When I sat down for some quiet time I wept in gratitude at God's goodness for giving my boys teachers who I knew would love them and recognize their needs, as well as draw their strengths out of them.  I said, "God, look what You've done!"  So sweetly and clearly, I saw a mental picture of God shrugging His shoulder and saying, "What do you expect? You are blessed. Homeschool or public school, you will be blessed. Your children will be blessed. Your family will be blessed. You are blessed. The blessings of Abraham are yours."

Moments like that are so profound.  They change us because they are ours alone. We can hear someone else's word from the Lord or read the Word, but when we hear Him speak a word directly to us, that word has power to change us. I walked away from that moment with the beginning of a new journey of powerful peace and trust.

A month later, Kris and I were talking about our house and our dream to build a new house on a lot that we purchased earlier in the year.  While we were happy in our home and with our location, we had lots of equity in our house but not the resources to do the things to our house that were sorely needing to be done. Three boys can be rough on carpet, walls, furniture, etc. With God's word to me freshly ringing in my heart, I said to Kris, "Why don't we just put our house on the market for way more than we think we can get for it and just see what happens?" He reminded me that we were about to have a baby any day and didn't really have a plan past selling the house.  To which I replied, "God told me we would be blessed, so let's give him an opportunity to show us how good He wants to be to us."

To Be Continued...