monday musings: the house story

Are you guys wondering where we are in all the housing stuff? We are certainly still on our adventure, even through this process of buying and selling a home.

I’ve talked about it before and even though you think I would learn my lesson, in the back of my head, I still don’t believe that God wants to take care of me. Why would he want to give me good things? And why do I want stuff anyways? Jeez consumeristic self, can’t you get a hold on your wants? So many people don’t have a home to live in, where do I get off wanting?

I knew we were selling our house and moving to an area of town I desired to live in – I couldn’t really ask for more than that, right? I knew that we weren’t going to be able to afford much because the homes are much smaller and much more expensive. Honestly, I just thought we would live in a two-bedroom dump and have to struggle to fix it up.

Yeah. I’m still struggling to wrap my head around what actually happened.

We found our dream home.

Well, actually, our friends tripped over our dream home. The short story is that their dog ended up in this yard and the families ended up talking. Turns out they needed to move and were looking to sell the home without a realtor to save a little money. Was anyone they knew interested in moving to central Austin? Um, yes, we were.

We viewed the home and fell in love. I couldn’t get over the little touches that were throughout the house that seemed like they were custom designed for our family. But then there was the money. Things always seem to get hung up on money, eh?

It was going to be too much for our family in this season of our lives. In case you didn’t know, Jason is starting a business so much of our savings (make that all, actually) is going towards this start up. That doesn’t leave us with much to go towards a new home, especially in this more expensive part of town.

Turns out, if you ask people to help, sometimes they actually can. Oh and it is humbling to ask for help with money. Jason’s dad agreed to help us out by doing a lease-to-own on this house.

…

See why I’m struggling to wrap my mind around it?

Sometimes I feel like God gives us good things that are just too much. Too awesome. Too amazing. I still feel a bit like puking when I think about it. I may actually puke when we move because then it will be overwhelmingly real.

After all of this, we put our house on the market. And it sold the second day.

To be honest, I worried about sharing all of this. It’s sometimes easier to share the messy, the difficult and the struggles – everyone can identify because we all struggle to make sense of the crazy. But what do you do with the blessings, the rejoicing and the too awesome? I feel like it should be shared too.

But I don’t share to brag – we did nothing. I have to keep reminding myself that the glory goes to God in all of this. I struggle to understand why we are recipients of his grace but I am grateful.