A Home Is Not A Home

There are parts of December 2012 that I don’t remember at all. Neither does Jesse, actually. We were under so much daily stress and trauma from our first foster care situation, that parts of memory have literally disappeared. We have to collaborate and ask others to remember things like, “Where were we for Christmas last year?” “What did we do on New Years?”

But there is a certain vivid memory that I do have. On this day last year, the second to last day of Finals Week, Jesse and I were packing up the last of our things at our town home that we rented. There were many tears, and a lot of, “don’t talk to me right now, I can’t handle discussing it.”

You see, if you remember our housing saga at all, we had put in our 30 day notice on our rental because we thought we were in escrow on a short sale house. At the last minute, however, the bank came back one final time and said they wanted tens of thousands more. We had to pull out of the deal, but we’d already agreed to vacate our town home.

Once again, we had no home. This was our 5th try at an escrow, and we were beyond discouraged. I told Jesse that I thought God had abandoned us.

I wish I knew then what I know now.

A week later on Christmas Eve, I checked Craigslist and found our dream house. I couldn’t believe the price. I couldn’t believe it was still available. Turns out, the remodel wasn’t done yet so the seller hadn’t had time to list in on the MLS.

As I cried and cried while packing all of those boxes in our tiny town home, I wish I had known that we were about to buy the house of our dreams, and that we were so blessed to have that short sale fall through. I wish I’d known that we were getting into the market at exactly the right time– that if we’d waited a few more months, even until the spring, all the houses would have drastically risen in price.  I wish we’d known that we were about to get a house for thousands under it’s appraised value, right before it was about to rise even more.

Our house isn’t just a home, it’s an everyday reminder of God’s faithfulness to us. We trusted Him, cried out, felt abandoned, and then got to experience His providential care for us.

Now that we have foster kids once again, I realize with complete satisfaction that this is what our house was meant for. We never needed this much room–in fact, we’d been looking at much smaller houses. But God gave us this house. He set it aside for us, kept it from the competition, and even threw in a bit of remodeling to help with our limited budget.

Every night, when I see all 4 of our boys running around and screeching with joy just to play games with one another, I thank God for our home. Every night when I tuck all 4 boys into their beds, I thank God that we have enough room to care for all of them. Every time I do their stinky socks in our new laundry room, I thank God that He gave us the extra money to get that project done. I thank God that He gave us the perfect seat from which to witness His plans for us and our boys. I thank God that He gave us a way in which to fulfill a vital ministry.

Most of all, though, I thank God that our house is not just our home.

The Story of Our House

Fantastic Coupon for Christmas Cards!

So….big changes

Another House Update