Solving a mystery with our sea shell spotting scope
Yard Sale fun...Malia was bored...so she entertained us with some funny faces!
Pressley Bug! What a little peanut!
I began typing this yesterday, as a small family walked through our house to see if they would be interested in buying it. This is maybe the 20th group of people to look at our house. Let me just say, if you’ve ever sold a house you know how stressful and frustrating of a process this can be. I mean, you literally could sell your house to the 3rd person to walk through or the 300th. You just never know. And with every passing day you get a little more stressed out. At least we have.
Carrie and I are waiting to make our big move to State College. At this point, we’re actually a little tired of the transition time–ready to move on and get settled. We are especially anxious to sell the house. The perspective of a mortgage payment and rent payment together each month is not an exciting thing.
With that all said, I have been thinking a lot about this situation and what God may be teaching us–as well as how God likes to teach people in general. Now I know all of the common sense answers. Many have told us, as if we didn’t already realize, that we probably will take a hit on our house financially since we bought it only a year ago. Just in case you’re wondering, we know that already, but thanks for the advice. 
We also know that the economy is bad and it is a buyer’s market and not a seller’s (truth be told this statement makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to me, but we keep hearing it). But aside from the common sense, I think God is still sovereign and probably is bigger than our time frame. Here are a few of the thoughts I’ve had about this most stressful piece of our transitional time regarding God’s work in it:
1 – Trust and faith. This is the easy lesson. “Keep trusting me,” God may be whispering. “Even if you lose every bit of savings you have and end up somewhere on the streets of State College.” I suppose you could launch a pretty wild ministry on a street corner–it’s been done before!
2 – Love your family. This has been the biggest blessing of not selling our house. It is so far out of our control, that Carrie and I have resorted to laughing a lot, and playing way more often with the girls. We were talking tonight before bed about the fact that if we had sold our house in June when we listed it we probably would have been consumed with moving for the next two months and missed out on a very sweet end of summer with these awesome kids God has given us. Yesterday I spent an hour playing Star Wars with my girls in the swing set. I sat in the “Upper Deck” portion and drove the space ship–they explored every world I took them to. This would not have happened if I was packing boxes. Today we spun in circles on our hardwood floor in the empty upstairs room, and then Malia asked me if Jesus and God were the same. I took 15 minutes to give a treatise on the Trinity using her three stuffed hippoes (3 but 1…). PRECIOUS TIME.
3 – What about the neighbors? Someone told me that I just never know what God may have happening in all the other homes around us. Even tonight I’m trying to spend some time in prayer for our neighbors… Perhaps there is brokenness that a simple conversation may allow us to intersect with the gospel as we wait for the house to sell.
4 – Stripping away the security. We literally could suffer financially through this. I’m trusting that we won’t, but I don’t follow the Joel Osteen systematic theology that promises blessings–even though I could go bankrupt and still be more blessed than the majority of the world. The question I keep feeling in my soul is, “Where does my security lie?” Identity, security, identity, security… this seems to be the playlist on repeat in my life right now.
All of this said, I’m enjoying the day to day. We are stressed, but assured. I love where I am. I laugh more now because I feel free. Free to know that none of this is my responsibility, and somebody else has to take care of us through it. And… he knows how to do it.
Oh, and one more note. I think this all hearkens a little bit toward how God chooses to teach us.
He teaches in layers. Something goes down in my life and something goes down in your life. Who knows when we may intersect but God? Who knows the reasons for these occurrences but God? And yet, his teaching is meant to be experiential, layered and loaded with the mystical that we may never see until we stand on the other side. Faithfulness and worship… this is our posture as we learn in these times.
May you all be blessed like we have–with stress-filled days spinning wildly with a 5 and 3-year old on a hardwood floor!
