My precious friend painted this for me one Christmas. Such a special treasure to always remember our Longview house and the journey it has brought us on!
So let me give you a new timeline....Mid November 2016, we get a new renter. In the nick of time. He even asks if he can paint the inside of our house out of his pocket. Sure! :)
Fast forward...middle of January...dad is in the hospital...I am trying to juggle GT being out of town, going up to the hospital, 3 kids...then one of neighbors from Longview texts me and ask if our renter moved out. OMG. Not again! Took a few days but we figured out yes he did move out. And left stuff in the house AGAIN! Stressed out isn't even appropriate to describe how I was feeling.
Few weeks later, we load the kids up...go clean out the house for the second time. Clean the house. We have no idea how we are going to pay the mortgage but we know we just can't get renters again. We step out in little faith and put the house on the market.
God comes through and provides a tax refund we can use to pay a few months mortgage. Full honesty here, I was still pissed. I was angry that our renter moved out again. Angry we had this house we used to love and was such a blessing, but we were done with it. Angry that we had to spend our tax refund on a mortgage to a house we weren't living in. I had so many other plans for that refund. My heart tried to be thankful God provided the money. I would go back and forth. Anger and thankfulness. All within the same minute.
We put the house on the market, January 31. It showed 3 times in the whole month. The last two times we listed it, it showed 3 times a week! We were so discouraged.
Tuesday of this week (March 7), I woke up with just a heavy heart. I cried on and off most of the day. Full of confusion. Why God? Why won't the house sell? How are we going to pay for another child's birth? How are we going to pay for this and that? We only have 1 more month of a mortgage payment, will we foreclose? And my dad isn't even here for advice and encouragement...
Our church is participating in Lent, we are giving up something each week...this week TV. We are only doing it with the kids (AH!)...so anyway, instead of the 30 minutes of TV they get a night, we are doing extended pray time. We prayed for the house in Longview to sell. And we prayed for the person sitting next to us. Ya'll, it has been so sweet. And really helped my ridiculous funk. I listened to my babies pray that God will send a buyer...how innocent they are and how much they believed with full faith.
Only 30 minutes after our prayer time Tuesday, my phone rings...Its our realtor! She said "the house has been showing like crazy, and I think we are going to get an offer tomorrow!"
Our hearts just exploded. Then we got cautious. But still. Hope.
The next day...realtor calls..We got an offer! MORE than we were asking for. And closing the end of March. ARE YOU KIDDING??!???!
Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can't you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? Romans 2:4
The next day, I spent a good amount of time crying again. But this time it was different. I was weeping out of repentance. My heart...was so full of doubt, anger, disobedience...and God STILL provided. And provided above our wildest dreams.
We know it could still fall through. Of course our prayers are that it won't. And this will be the end of this stressful journey. The lessons we have learned, and the amount my faith has grown cannot be replaced.
I guess I wrote this for me as a remembrance. And a journal. And an encouragement to you. Wherever you are in a hard situation, just know that He is faithful. Even when it isn't in our timing. His timing is ALWAYS right. And better than ours. AND He is working for your good!
This is a verse I claimed a lot during this season, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:28
