Lessons to Learn: The Move – Part 2

I have recently shared the lessons God needed to teach us on the first part of this journey – lessons to learn about His timing, the hard job of waiting, and His working during the wait. However, He had even more to teach us during the second part of the journey.

Ideally, we were looking for a little bit of land in the country, a smaller house, and a simpler lifestyle.

I had a dream of an old farmhouse with a great front porch, a tree lined driveway, and chickens. We also envisioned space to offer others as a retreat – a space to be quiet, reflect, and just “be” for a little bit. We weren’t asking for much, but it proved to be elusive either in our price range or in our target location. Everything fitting this bill was an hour away from my husband’s job.

After so much searching for the “dream”, we finally came to the conclusion it just wasn’t meant to be. We began exploring other options and scenarios, from renting to short-term low budget options; however, nothing seemed to be the right fit. The market was pretty slim and we found ourselves looking at some places simply because there was nothing else to look at.

So, here is how the hunt for our new house went in a nutshell:

• We find a fixer upper
• The sale falls through 10 days before we close on the sale of our old house.
• Move into temporary student housing and begin the search all over again.
• Look and look and look and then look some more!
• We write an offer on a house, neither of us sleep, and I text our realtor at 1:30am telling her to hold off. We were making a mistake!
• Keep looking
• More sleepless nights…

We apparently had more lessons to learn.

Our fixer upper needed a lot of work, but the price was right, the potential was great, and the location would work. Unfortunately, this proved to be a costly detour on the journey.

We knew the inspection would come back with lots of things to fix. However, we were not expecting the structural issues. We almost walked away at that moment, but we really thought we could make it work. After some more discussion with the owner, we decided to move forward.

However, the appraisal flagged the structural issues and our lender would not approve the loan without a structural engineer’s report. The lender required the repairs before the loan could be finalized. We were not able to come to an agreement with the owner and we realized we had to walk away. Unfortunately, we were out $1800 with all the inspections and we were closing on our old house less than 2 weeks later!

So what did God have to teach us during this second part of the journey?

God knows our need before we do.

God knew this sale would fall through and knew we would need a place to stay in the waiting. We were blessed to be able to move into student housing temporarily; however, we did have a firm move out date to make room for incoming students.

Sometimes the lesson is in the searching.

We began the search process again, but we no longer knew which direction God wanted us to go. We saw some fairly new houses with not much needing to be done, older homes needing a little bit of lovin’, and one that we are pretty sure a few critters were living in.

A forecloser came on the market that was a definite possibility; although, when our realtor locked the door behind us and said she had notified the sheriff’s office we would be there, we were a bit concerned. Apparently, the former owner still believed he owned the property and would show up to run people off. Between the strict HOA and the former owner’s antics, we decided this was not the house for us.

We saw a beautiful 100 year old home that had some gorgeous woodworking. I wanted to make it work so badly; however, the layout just didn’t fit our needs and there was constant traffic noise from the busy highway in front of the house.

We toured another fixer upper that was structurally in great shape, spent an hour walking around figuring out the changes we would need to do to make it work for us, and got excited for the possibilities. Our realtor wrote up an offer and…there was already an offer on the house and a backup offer…as in already in place when we went to see the house, which was not listed as pending, and the other realtor didn’t mention the fact when we scheduled the showing. The house was still not marked pending for 5 more days! So frustrating!

With all this, we also had several showings canceled on us because they went under contract before we could make it to our appointment.

Through the searching we were met with silence, and through the silence we learned our need to patiently wait on the Lord. Note, I didn’t say we learned patience, but rather our need for patience!

God’s plan is not necessarily our plan.

All of this led us to see the house we (ok, I) had refused to even consider. I hated the location and we all know “location, location, location”. I finally agreed so that we could simply mark it off our list.

The house definitely needed work, but we ended up loving the setting. We made an offer. Well, almost. Remember that 1:30am text?

At this point, there was nothing left to see except another FSBO fixer upper. A beautiful stone house, right in the middle of our little downtown. Brian could walk to work and we could walk to anywhere we needed to go in town. It had so much potential and would be a great investment long term. However, it was way over priced for all the work that needed to be done and the owners were not budging on the price.

While we stewed over this one, our contractor friend suggested we go back to see the other house with him and see if he might be able to give us some ideas to fix the big things that were causing us those sleepless nights.

I didn’t want this house. I wanted the stone house. However, as we debated each house, we kept going back to our original wishlist – a little bit of land in the country, a smaller house, and a simpler lifestyle.

This was the house God planned for us, but it is not the house I planned on.

We have to learn to be content with the now while we wait on the future.

We finally pulled the trigger; however, we went in lower than our original planned offer. God knew we were going to find there was more to do on this house and in a faster time frame than we had originally intended.

I had a dream of an old farmhouse with a great front porch, a tree lined driveway, and chickens.

Instead, God gave us a 1960’s brick ranch with no front porch, a steep driveway, no dining space, and only one narrow bathroom in need of remodeling.

However, we can hear the creek from our back stone patio, we can see the lightening bugs dancing in the front yard, we can find turtles on their slow and steady journey through our grass, and we can enjoy the peaceful quiet of an early morning with only the birds to join us.

There are always lessons to learn as we walk the journey God sets before us. Contentment is definitely part of the journey.

Oh, and we inherited chickens!

I invite you to read about Part 1 of this crazy move story and these other posts on waiting on God.

Lessons Learned: The Move – Part 1

While We Are Waiting on God to Act

The Secret to Waiting Well

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