It's been a while since I posted, though I have been doing much writing lately. I'm working on a project that might actually be a legit published project one day, we'll see! For now, I wanted to update everyone on our downsizing journey. Honestly, I've been wanting to post for weeks but haven't had the time. I definitely have not gained any time for the moments I'm sitting here at my computer at 10:30pm but God did what He does and swooned me off my feet so hardcore that I literally got out of my bed to come write this post.
For those that are new to this crazy plan of ours, you can read my original post on downsizing and holy discontentment here. As life often does, it got crazy and I have not had time to blog all about all the ups and downs of this journey. I wrote them all in my head and they were fantastically witty and yet still profound. Unfortunately, they never made their way to the keyboard. I will try to condense it for the sake of time (I'm tired and like I said, its 10:30pm) and I have every intention of writing more in depth later but realistically, that will probably never happen.
So our house went on the market and I thought it would sell like hotcakes because God always moves super fast. Except He doesn't really ever move fast, at least not in our understanding of the word fast. In fact, one of the things He has showed me through this journey is that one of the only (if not the only) place He moves "fast" in scripture is when the prodigal son returns home. How fitting of our good good Father to only run when it is to greet the wayward son returning home.
In August, we went under contract only for that to fall through within about a week. It ended up being a blessing in disguise (of course it did) because the inspection showed all the things we needed to fix...and I was able to fix most of them myself for super cheap. Praise Him. After that, we waited a lot and I prayed a lot "Can we be done now? Can I take it off the market now?" I never changed my convictions for what led us to sell in the first place, I just got really tired of all the showings. (It's miraculous almost to the equivalency of parting the Red Sea to keep a house in showing condition with 2 kids under 5.) God kept saying no and reassuring me that it was part of the plan.
I begrudgingly kept the house clean and often repented of my bad attitude about it. Then one day at the end of February, I was praying about what to do and God said to me "sell the house." Ummmm yeah, no disrespect Dad but isn't that what I've been trying to do for 10 months?? Again He said "sell the house." After a bit more confusion and sarcasm on my end, I realized that He was telling me that I had obediently put the house on the market but that it was time to be a little more proactive in getting it sold. So I decided (with His blessing this time) to take the house off the market for a month, do some little projects to make it look better for prime selling season, and put it back on in April, looking so fresh and so clean and not like it had been sitting on the market since May. Are you aware that God has a sense of humor? He does. There was someone watching our house and as soon as it went off the market, they called their agent wondering where it went. Long story short, the week before I went to Africa for 2 weeks we had a house showing, an offer, and a contract on a house that was not even on the market. Only God, right?
The contract negotiations continued a bit while I was out of the country and away from wifi but eventually we settled on all the terms and a closing date of May 13. We don't exactly know where we're going after that but we have a house that we love that we're in negotiations for. Tomorrow morning I'm meeting with a few handymen contractors to scour the house with me and make sure its worth the investment. (Its an oldie but goodie...built in 1965 and still in its prime.) One of them I consider a friend and he has done plenty of work at our current house. He called me tonight and said "Hey I drove by the house you're thinking about...you really are downsizing there kiddo!" I could hear it a little in his voice, the intonation I've heard multiple times in the past 11 months. He was wondering if we are gracefully losing our house. Lots of people have wondered that. The answer is a definitive no and maybe one day I'll write a blog post about that...but probably not because I have a job and two kids and a life (sort of) and oh yeah, I'm moving. Suffice it to say for today's purposes that if I were the type of person to lose my house and then mask my shame behind a veil of charity and false righteousness, I wouldn't like myself and wouldn't expect anyone else to either. Anyways, I pulled up my blog post on why we decided to move so that I could send him the link, hoping it would explain the apparent ludicrous motive of our move. As I did, I couldn't help but notice the date of the post...and I giggled like a child. I'm not much of a giggler but every now and then God swoons me to the point of true giggles. I wrote that blog post on May 13, 2015...we close on our house on May 13, 2016. Only God.
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