A New Home!

About three weeks ago, I was doing some shopping with my sister and Evan called me to tell me he had just received word that we would have to move out of our rent house by the end of May/first of June because the owners needed it for a family member. Needless to say, the shopping fun ended, and my sweet sister let me hash everything out while we grabbed a bite to eat. Moving from our little house was nowhere on our radar! Evan and I had been talking and praying through some other major decisions  and really, we have had no desire to move out of our house. This little yellow farmhouse and all our neighbors have been such a wonderful blessing to us in the last two years! We know our landlords did not like delivering the news at all, but for us it was really a blow! 

Evan and I truly believe that nothing happens by accident and that God is sovereign over all things. While in the beginning we were sad (I spent pretty much a whole night and full day following in tears!), we KNEW and TRUSTED God would completely take care of this for us. We didn't know what it would look like, but we just knew HE would. So, we talked and prayed and talked and prayed. I clung to verses like Psalm 62:5-8, 11 and Psalm 130:5-6. 

The options for rentals around here are just pretty slim. We were given some info on one rental, and before I could even go look at the inside I was already nervous about the outside. It sits up on a hill close to a pretty busy highway, and all I could see was a ball rolling down the hill and one of my kids going after it!  With open minds, we went to look at it anyway. When we walked inside, my heart just sank! I prayed and told the Lord that if that's where He wanted us, I would do it, but I just didn't really see our family in that house. 

While we were gathering info on the few rentals, Evan sent me a link to a foreclosure house. His exact text said, "Don't start freaking out when I say this...I'm just throwing it out there. How do you feel about a reno?" He knows me so well...well enough to know that since buying was not on our radar, he needed to prep me for it a little bit. :) Honestly, it didn't really freak me out. As I looked at the link and started thinking about it, it became exciting, but I knew it would take a miracle for everything to work out. Soooo...Evan started digging around, gathering information, and we started praying. 

First, he went to the bank to see what kind of options we had for purchasing. Since we still own our Louisville house (we'd love to get rid of it someday, but the Lord has been faithful to provide a good renter to us) we weren't really sure if purchasing was really an option for us. Funny thing...after talking to the bank, the best purchasing option would be this foreclosure. 

The next thing we needed was to get inside the house. We came to a stand-still for a couple of days because Evan couldn't find anyone to open it up for us. Since the house was priced so low and the listing  agent was 20 minutes away, she wouldn't come and open it up for us. After that happened, Evan started doing a LOT of digging around about the house (his Title Research business came in super handy here!) and found out it had been owned by HUD, was deeded back to Chase bank, and was going to auction soon. He also found out it was a cash only auction, which we thought was going to totally take us out of the running, until Evan figured out a way for us to bid on the house. The house was on an auction website for three days and we ended up winning the bid! It was under the reserve price, so we really thought the bank/auction company would counter-offer, but they accepted our bid and we are now waiting on closing documents and will hopefully have a closing date very soon. We will be doing quite a bit of renovating (mostly cosmetic) and I hope to keep a good log of before and after pics. Honestly, I never dreamed we would be doing something like this! We are super excited and are ready to get on with it!

I feel like I could write a book on all the Lord has taught me in the last three weeks! Here are just a few:

*God cares about me. He cares about my desires, my fears, my anxieties. I love in Psalm 62:8 where it says, "Pour out your heart to Him." He has made it abundantly clear to me through this whole process that He truly cares about the details of my life.

*While God knows what we NEED, he delights in giving us things we want, too. One night before bedtime during this whole ordeal, Arden was asking for something she didn't really need, but just wanted. She kept saying, "But I NEED it!" As I got it for her, God showed me that He cares for me the same way.

*Keeping with the whole need/want theme, it was tough to balance that in my prayers. I trusted God knew what I needed more than I did, and at one point had to surrender to Him that if He provided a house that was less than ideal in my mind that I would trust Him to give me the grace to live there.

*I could tell you about a thousand times during the last three weeks about instances when I was feeling down or discouraged and God would send a word to lift me up. It came in the form of encouraging texts, cards in the mail, and mostly by reading His word.

*God provided a way for Evan to get inside the house. One night before the auction started, Evan went over to the house trying to figure out a way to get in, and the keys were IN THE DOOR! No lie! That was probably the third time he'd been over there, and they weren't there the times before. I truly believe in God's unlimited power, He caused those keys to be in the door. He was able to get in, walk around and check it all out.

*God works in the most mysterious ways and used this whole housing situation to shed some light on some other decisions we'd been praying through. It often baffles me how things work together, but I am thankful for the clarity even in the midst of what seems like something hard. I'm also pretty convinced that we are where we are supposed to be for a reason and look forward to seeing how He uses us here!