Where do I begin? Well, I will begin with the greatest news of all! We are homeowners (1 month today) and we absolutely feel like the most blessed family on the planet. It was hard and definitely taught me a lot about patience and mercy. But, in the end, we are owners of a beautiful home that we love. Now, for the story. (That's the best part anyway, right!?)
First, God doesn't make mistakes. Whether that is by allowing certain things to happen to us, by creating a life, or by taking things or people away. Second, God is always on time. He is not a day late or a minute early. His timing is exactly what it needs to be for His glory and honor. Finally, God has so much more for us when we surrender to His will and lay our will aside.
With all that said, here we go. We began our search for a new home and wanted to stay close to our "current" home. We searched and searched. We looked at every possible home that came available. Every single time I thought that God had led us to the "perfect" house. Each house, I would imagine in my mind what it would look like with us living in it. When the homes would not "pan" out, I wasn't disappointed. I had a peace each time. With each one, God kept saying to us, "the best is yet to come." I kept thinking, that's crazy. This house (the one we were looking at) has to be the best. But, oh, how patient God is with us. I had given God a timeline (LOL) for our home to have a contract. I had said to Him that it had to have a contract by April 30, in order for us to close on a new home by the cutoff date for our preapproval.
On April 26, we had yet to show the house even once in almost 2 months. BUT, my specific prayer from the beginning was to only show the house once to the person who would buy it. On April 26, our amazing realtor called to say that she had a showing on Monday, April 29 at 6:15! We, of course, cleaned the house like crazy and got it ready. We left the house and headed to eat dinner. At 6:18, we got a call from Olivia (our Realtor). We had a cash offer! What? Are you kidding me? Oh my! By 6:45 we had worked out the details and we had a contract on our house. WOW! God is so good! And a day ahead of "my schedule". HA!
So, of course, this throws me into crazy mode because we don't have a house to buy yet. We looked again at a house that night and quickly marked it off the list. On Tuesday evening we opened our search area just a bit. When we did, a few more houses popped up. But one house in particular caught our eye. I jotted down the address on a notepad by my computer, sent a text that we wanted to see it on Thursday to our realtor, and went to bed. The next day, Wednesday, May 1, I got to work at school and was given a stack of papers that needed the addresses, phone numbers and parents' names filled in for each child in our class. I pulled the first one off and wrote his address down. Shocker...it was the same address I had written down the night before. I was in shock. Not only that, but the child in our class is adopted and so are his 3 other siblings. Seriously, God, can you line things up any more perfectly? I called our Realtor on my break and moved the showing up to that day at 3. We saw that house and one other in the neighborhood. We felt very drawn toward the 1st house (our house), but because the price was so much less, we felt we should make an offer on the 2nd house. We headed back to the office to make an offer, but the whole way, neither of us had a settled feeling. I kept hearing God's voice saying, "Trust me." We talked quickly before arriving and decided that God wanted us to make an offer on the 1st house. After going back and forth for about a day, we arrived at an agreement and we had a contract on the house. YAY!!!
Now, I would be wrong to tell you all of this went off without a hitch and we closed with no bumps. That was definitely not the case. BUT, God was with us every single step of the way. We closed on our "old" house on May 30 and moved into the new house that day. We closed on the "new" house on June 11. Again, God is so good.
We now have a 4 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath home with over 2400 square feet, almost 3/4 acre lot that is fenced in and a pool! The house is gorgeous and we love it. We definitely did not deserve it!!!
This past Friday, my van (that we were trying to push replacing until the fall), decided to act up. The transmission was going out in it. We called our sweet faithful friend Nick and go the "low down" on what we should do. After assessing the situation with the van, what it was worth, minus replacing the transmission, we decided to cut our losses and trade it. So we did. We traded it for Chris' vehicle. We got him a 2003 Toyota Avalon and again, God was in the entire process. He got us an amazing deal and we love the new (to us) car!
Throughout the process, my parents have been helping us look for a new van. Of course, we thought that we were going to be replacing it in the fall. But God had another idea. My parents found us a 2003 Honda Odyssey where they live, 3 hours from us, in another state. Without seeing the van, trusting God and my parents, we purchased the van. It is being delivered to us on Wednesday.
So, for those of you keeping tabs. Our list that we started out with, is complete. There isn't anything else that God has to do. He has completed a good work in His servants. Now, the fun begins. We are almost finished with our paperwork. We have signed up for our 2 training sessions that are 7 hours each in Simpsonville. We have completed our fingerprinting. We are a month away from being able to have our home study scheduled. This is getting real!
How can you pray for us?
We are going to have to replace a window in our house to make it work for the fire code for DSS adoption. It is going to cost us money out of pocket. Please pray that when that time comes, the funds are there. We are trying to come up with a fundraiser to do for this. If you have any ideas, please let us know.
Please pray for our health, finances and relationships as we strive to do God's will.
Please pray for our stamina. This has already been a long road (1 1/2 years) and we have a ways to go. Please pray for focus and determination to finish the race.
Please pray for our children. They want so badly for their new siblings to "hurry up and get here". It is so hard for them to understand that God's timing is perfect. But they are learning and it is awesome to watch them see God's masterpiece unfolding before their eyes.
Please pray that the mountains left to move, will move according to God's will, timing and glory.
Thank you so much for praying for us! Thank you for supporting us. We love you all!
In His grip,
Chris and Elizabeth
