Today, I posted on my FB page this post:
The way that God weaves our lives is an amazing and beautiful tapestry. The lives touched by those around you may be unknown to you. I know where my peace lies and it is in Christ Jesus. Do you have a peace? During the storm you are in right now, cry out persistently to the Lord. He is waiting on you to ask for His help.
The reason that I posted that today was because God has literally BLOWN my mind and the easiest way to wrap my brain around this whole process is to look at our lives and the lives all around us as a tapestry that God is weaving. Each life is a strand. I am going to begin by giving you the amazingly wonderful news! We have a contract on a house!!!!! This week, from Monday to today, we have gone from homeowners, to homeless, to having a home to go to. It has been an awesome ride! We are so thankful and praising God for His amazing blessing. We, in our own power could not have organized (even though I will say it is one of my strong suits) this super intricate event.
Now, I want to give you just a glimpse into what some may call "coincidences". To Chris and I, it is no coincidence. It is God! I'm going to try, without using names, etc. because this blog reaches so many people, to create the picture.
On Monday evening, we had an offer on our house. After going back and forth, we agreed. On Tuesday, I was a little panicked (LOL! If you spoke to me that day, you know I was a LOT panicked). There were no longer any houses in the area that we were looking that were in our price range that we liked. We looked at a foreclosure but it had basically been destroyed and while it was an amazing price for the square footage; we would have had to have put a ton of money into it. So, it was a "no". Tuesday evening, we broadened our search area just a bit. Once we did that, 3 more potential houses were showing. Of the 3, we picked 1. It was still farther away than what we wanted. But that was ok. We were allowing God to guide us instead of limiting Him to what we wanted. (Very difficult to do. Much easier to say. But so worth it.) We scheduled with our amazing Realtor to see it on Thursday at 4:30. I wrote the address down on a notepad by my computer. On Wednesday morning, I arrived at work and during the morning, was given a paper for one of my students that needed to have the address, phone number, parents' names, etc filled in on. I wrote the address down and about had a heart attack. This was the exact same address that I had written down the night before. At the time, I didn't know that this family was moving. Not the same street, or area. The exact same address!!! People, I can't make this stuff up! So, I took a deep breath. Looked the address up online to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Sure enough. Same house. WOW! The huge part was, I knew that the couple living in that house, had adopted. Not just one child but multiple children. Are you kidding me?!? Seriously God. So much was running through my mind and heart at that point. I called our Realtor and asked if we could possibly move up the time to see it exactly 24 hours to that day, Wednesday. After a phone call, we were set to see the house. We walked through the house and felt an overwhelming feeling that we had come home. It was perfect. It was exactly what we needed. I felt a connection to the family who had occupied that house and I had never even really met any of them except the sweet child in my class. We made an offer on the house that night.
Skip away from the new house for a moment and go back to the old house with me. Wednesday evening I got a call from a friend at work. She went to high school with Chris and me. She said, you will never believe this. The guy buying your house is one of my best friends. Through a series of conversations with him, she figured out that he was buying not just any house, but our house. WOW!!! Again, amazing. This precious man has been prayed for! We are so thrilled for him to have our house. We are so blessed that he chose our house. Little did he know, He was all part of God's amazing tapestry.
Now, back to the new house. After going back and forth for only a short time, we arrived on an agreement. The house will be ours. This evening, I got a FB message and friend request from the Momma of the family of the house we are buying. Through correspondence on FB, I have realized that we are way more alike that we know. I believe that through this process, God has given us another set of friends that we can gain knowledge and understanding from about this adoption journey and just life in general. They share the same faith as we do. They share the same passion as we do. And now, we are linked together in God's amazing tapestry through a house.
Like I said, what a beautiful tapestry that God is weaving just for us. We are immensely blessed. We do not deserve this. We are definitely not worthy of a house like this. But, when we get right down to it. We are not worthy of anything, but Jesus paid our debt. We wiped us clean. You don't have to clean up your life to give it over to Him. You give it over to Him and He cleans you up! Two years ago, I would never have believed where we are right now. One year ago, I trusted that God would make a way and move huge mountains to reach His goal, but had no idea how it would be accomplished. Four months ago, we surrendered to His complete will for our lives and allowed Him to guide us. We have not been without fail. We have messed up. We have strayed. We have tried to run the show at times. But each time, God has lovingly guided us back to where He wanted us to be, and been oh, so patient with us. Somehow, being in God's truck riding this journey called life is the scariest, most peaceful place to be. Some days, I think, "Are we really doing this?" And then I look around and see blessing after blessing. Yes, we are really doing this and we couldn't be more excited and ready.
How can you pray specifically for us today and in the days to come?
1. Please pray that everything with the sale of our house (inpsections, detitling, etc) goes without a hitch. Or, if there are hitches, we would take them in stride, without panic and know that it is all part of God's plan.
2. Pray that the sale of the house we are moving to goes as planned. Also, please pray for the timing of it all. We are set to close, as of right now, on the 30th of May. That is a Thursday and we would need to be completely out of our current house that day. Please pray for details of the move to be smooth.
3. Please pray specifically for our sweet Kathryn. She doesn't like change. She is very excited about a new house, new kiddos arriving, etc. But not so much a new school. Please pray for wisdom on our parts through that. We have school choice here, so it's not a mandate that she go to a new school.
4. Continue to pray that we can somehow continue to work on paperwork for the adoption through this process of moving.
5. Please pray for a specific request that we need answered soon. I can't go into details, but God knows the details. It is not a life or death issue. Just a need that we need answered so that we can move on.
Thank you so much! I know this update was long. I promise they won't all be this long. I hope that you had a glimpse of what we are seeing right now on a daily basis. God's hand, guiding our every move.
In His Grip,
Chris and Elizabeth
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