Yesterday at about 5pm, Amber & I closed on our first house. We will probably always look back on this milestone as proof that God, in His perfect timing, answers prayer. He doesn't always say "Yes" – which is a good thing – but this time He did.
Sitting down to sign mortgage papers and walking out with a key was the easy part. The hard part was the almost 6 months of waiting, frustration and doubt leading up to that moment. A lot of ups and downs have happened since we first walked through the doorway of our new address and decided to put an offer on the place. And I think we're better people because of it.
Snow was coming down in early March as our realtor (who is also a good friend of ours) walked my wife and I through a beautiful and practically new home that had been on the market since October. We almost passed the house by when we first saw it online, thinking that it had already been sold, but God told Amber to write it down anyway. How about that. Looking in each of the spacious bedrooms, I remember not letting myself feel at home because we had seen plenty of homes already. Good ones. And with each one, there was some reason that we would not (or could not) move forward. In fact, there was one house in particular that we were sure God had in mind for us: one that we kept thinking about, driving past and hoping for. We quickly put in an offer and even prayed for the other buyer that we were in competition with, asking God to bless them if we weren't supposed to get the house...but we secretly believed it was for us.
As it turned out, we were wrong. It's good to be wrong.
As Amber and I walked through the house you see pictured above, we couldn't believe that a 4-bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2-car garage house could even be in our price range...but it was. We both started to feel that nervous & excited feeling as we realized that this house wouldn't just meet our needs, but we could grow into it. Up until that day, we had settled for smaller houses with higher monthly payments. But this place was in a different ballpark altogether. It was better than we would have asked for. And that's how God works.
Now hold up a second. Like I said earlier, we had to wait half a year before being able to call the house our own. It was a "short sale" situation, which basically has nothing to do with the word short. We got a wonderful house with all the goodies, but we had to have patience as the adventure unraveled. The truth is, we were angry with God many times as setbacks and challenges got in the way. We almost walked away, too, and we would have done it a lot sooner if we could have seen the future. So honestly, we weren't really patient at all. But God loves us so much that He did a lot of tiny miracles to give us hope and keep us from falling away.
So, I don't know what you're going through in life right now, but think about our story and ask God to give you a better life than you could ask for. He will not let you down; just be still.
