The Story of our House

The house is quiet. All three of my sweet babies are napping. I am surrounded by boxes, waiting to be unpacked and organized. But I want to take a little while to write down a testimony to God's greatness.

Ever since I quit teaching, two years ago, we have "struggled" financially. Our income was literally cut by almost 60%. At first, we were just taking a huge leap of faith, relying on God and our savings account to help us adjust. Well, the savings account was pretty much drained after the first six months of our single income life. Then, like any other normal Americans, we started using our credit cards to make it through the end of the months. It wasn't like God's wasn't providing enough money for our shelter, food and basic clothing needs. But He just wasn't providing enough for McDonald's, trips to Target, and other "fun" stuff.

So, after a year of charging the "extras", we finally allowed God to really convict us about our finances. We weren't honoring Him by our haphazard spending and rising credit card balances. I can still remember the rainy road trip back from Ft. Worth when Dawson and I argued, talked, cried, and prayed about our financial mess. This was May of 2009. We started weighing options. We wanted to open our hearts to whatever God wanted us to do. We wanted to be willing to go in any direction, or sacrifice any material possession. After much praying and wise counsel, we sold cars and started living on a REAL cash budget. Neither of these were easy, but they made a huge difference. We had prayed about selling our house, but we just didn't feel God leading us in that direction.

A year went by, and we learned A LOT about our money and our stewardship of that money. We started to simplify, and tried to be satisfied with the basics. God performed MANY miracles, by providing for us in ways we could've never imagined! Like after getting down to one small car, God prompted a beautiful family to GIVE us a mini-van! And by anonymous donations to our family at Christmas time! Incredible acts of God's love that we could never deserve. But I think God was encouraging us to keep relying on Him for EVERYTHING, and that He would provide above and beyond every time.

But even after all of that, we still didn't have enough monthly income to be paying down our previous debt or to be putting money away for savings. So, at the beginning of May 2010, almost exactly a year after our first money revolution, I told Dawson that I felt God telling us to pray about selling our house. I really, really didn't want to, but I was willing to pray about it for a couple of weeks.

After those couple of weeks, Dawson felt like God was directing us to sell, but I did not feel that same peace. I was still hanging on to our home. I didn't want to give up the place where I had brought all three of my babies home from the hospital. I didn't want to leave our walls that we had lovingly painted in our favorite colors. I didn't want to leave our sweet neighbors who included close friends and family. But we knew God wouldn't be contradicting Himself by sending us two different messages, so we began to pray together.

It was on a Monday, while Dawson was at worship practice. And I was praying in the bath tub....I think the tub/shower seems to turn into a mother's prayer sanctuary sometimes, since it's one of the only places we are alone! Anyway, I was crying and praying about our money, and our debt and our house, feeling so burdened and stressed. And then i literally felt a lightness in my chest, and God speaking to my heart about letting go of our house. He told me that the sweetness of our home was not about the house.....it was about Him and our family. It was during this same prayer time that God, as crazy as this sounds, impressed upon my heart and mind, a certain price for selling our house. A price of $142,000. I wasn't sure why, but it was clear that this specific number was sticking in my mind. So when Dawson got home around 11:30pm, we talked and prayed and decided to sell our house!

The next morning, we contacted a realtor friend who goes to church with us, and she agreed to meet with us the next day. Linda came over to our house Wednesday night, after the kids' went to bed. At first, she sat down with us and tried to talk us out of selling the house. We had a good interest rate, a very reasonable mortgage payment and a perfect family-friendly cul-de-sac. Moving did not seem logical. However, we explained to her that we felt God leading us to do this, so she went to work. At first, she started crunching numbers, based on a long list of comparable houses on the market, and other realtor stuff that I didn't really understand. After she had burned up her calculator for a few minutes, she looked at us and said, "It looks like the magic number is going to be $142,000." Dawson and I both started laughing and we knew without a shadow of a doubt that God's Hand was at work.

We were leaving out of town the next day for a long weekend in Ft. Worth with family. Linda told us that she normally would never have a client list their house and open it for viewings until it was prepped and "show ready," but since we were going to be gone for several days, and it was prime time for house-shopping, she didn't want to waste the opportunity. She gave me a list of things to do to get the house as ready as possible in the next 14 hours before we left town!! Dawson and I stayed up very late that night, taking down all of our family pictures, taking kids' stuff to the garage, cleaning and rearranging. It was CRAZY and EXHAUSTING!

We finally set off for Ft. Worth around 2:00pm, and were actually pulling out the driveway when Linda's assistant came pulling up to take pictures of our house to post on their website. We apologized to her for the house still looking less than perfect, but she told us that they actually already had someone coming to look at the house that evening. We couldn't believe it! It was actually another Century 21 agent who had heard Linda talking about our house in the office.

That night, after hosting a 31 party for my sis-in-law, I checked my phone. I saw that I had a missed call from our realtor. I called her right away, and she said, "Have you talked to Dawson?" and I said no. Then she said, "Well, I should let him tell you, but I can't wait to tell you the good news. We have an offer and a contract on your house!" I couldn't believe it!! The couple that had come to look at our house that evening had loved it so much that they made a full price offer, and signed a contract on it that evening!!! Dawson and I were shocked! But what was even more amazing was the story Linda told us about the buyers.

This sweet couple had been looking for a house for almost 9 months! They had already given up their rental property and had been living with friends from their church. They had seen dozens of houses, but just had not found the perfect one. Well, Sarah, the wife (who is also expecting their first baby girl in August) had been praying diligently about God's will for their house. And when she pulled up to our house that Thursday evening, she started laughing. The realtor agent asked her why she was laughing, and she told him it was because she had had a dream about our house!! She knew that God had showed her which house He had for them, and our house was that house!! They then asked, "Where do we sign?"

We couldn't believe it was happening so fast. God had obviously prepared the way, and He was blessing us beyond belief. By the next morning, we were faxing contracts back n' forth to be signed, and had settled on a closing date. And our realtor, Linda, told us later that God was receiving so much glory from the selling of our house, even just in the Century 21 office, because of the stories of how God had orchestrated everything.

Now, only July 3rd, we are settling into our new house. But now, we are debt-free, except for our mortgage. Praise God for that!! Moving was definitely a crazy, brutal ordeal, but the hardest part is over, and now we can just enjoy setting up our new home.

I can't express how grateful I am to God, and how in-awe I am of Him and His plans.

Some pictures of our memories in that house.....