I was driving through town today looking at all the for-sale signs on houses, all the desperate pleas from builders of new McMansions. Price Reduced! Steal a home below builder's cost! We pay closing costs!
(There, if that doesn't bring the spambots, nothing will ...)
Really, though, I started thinking. I loved owning my own little home. I put in natural-cherry colored floors and painted the ceilings peach to accentuate the sloping ceilings, and the walls khaki and butter yellow and the trim ivory. I installed light fixtures and sewed curtains and painted cabinets. I planted russian sage and phlox and woolly thyme, hyacinths and daffodils. I got crabapple blossoms and lilacs every year for my birthday.
I cried when we locked the doors for the last time and thought of pioneers and told myself, I'm not the first woman ever to leave home for her husband.
And we left behind one of those hopeful for-sale signs and waited. We got offers and accepted them and then they fell through, over and over again. Four times we fell out of escrow, before all was said and done. And the whole time we were praying that we could please, please sell this house.
In between the third and fourth fall-throughs, we took a two-year break and rented it out. This spring it finally sold.
Now I can look back and see so much more clearly. If that house had sold in 2003 or early 2004, we would have made almost nothing but bought a home here at the top of the market, probably on an interest-only loan. It would have fallen in value by today and we could easily be upside-down in a mortgage. And in less than a year there are very good chances that we will need to move, either north a ways so G and I can split a commute, or somewhere else entirely. And we would be so sadly stuck.
Instead of that sad situation we have a good little egg socked away from the sale of the condo, a cozy home to rent for much cheaper than a mortgage payment, and only excitement -- not dread -- about what we will do when G completes his Ph.D. and we need to move (maybe). How blessed are we!?!?
I heard someone say, once, "Well, I'm not doing the church thing and everything is still going fine for me. My life is great."
I think Heavenly Father doesn't necessarily always bless us because we do what's right. We do what's right because we see his hand and love him, and are grateful.
6 comments:
Sometimes it's so hard to wait it out when blessings don't readily appear. But, when they do finally come, those blessings which come from waiting are so worth it!
"Be still and know that I am God" is one of my favorite scripture passages regarding the delay of blessings.
Dude, did you sneak into R.S. yesterday and shirk the YW duties? Because you basically got it all down at the end of your post there. ;-)
I think this is how I feel when people keep egging us on about when are we going to buy a house, when are we going to move, etc., etc.. I want to move more than anyone else wants us to move, but it just hasn't been the right time yet. And when it is, it is!
So, are we still on for Saturday?
Love this, thank you. :)
That's a good insight, Ana. It shall all be for thy good.
That's a lovely thought to have in my head tonight (this morning!) as I head off to bed. Thank you!
Hey Ana! Thanks for a neat story, and yes, a great thought to go to bed with. Love it!
I love this!!! As I look back at the events that have unfolded in my lifetime, but more specifically in the last few years, I am amazed. What seemed, at the time, to be disappointments were actually blessings. Every hiccup has worked to prepare a way for us to do what we are doing now. Astonishing, really. I was thinking about this very thing tonight.
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