Tell about a time you feel God answered your prayer.
God has answered many of my prayers, though I often don't realize it at the time. My latest journey with God involves our current house, and the house we sold to get here.
I loved our last house! I knew the second I walked through the front door, that it would be my home. The Hubbs and I used to go walking in the park that ran through the middle of the neighborhood where the house was, and I always loved it. It was the first house my husband and I lived in together. We planned our wedding there and brought Jay home to that house. I have SO many wonderful memories in that house. It will always have a special place in my heart.
I can't explain it, but one morning I woke up, and I just knew that we were supposed to sell our house because it wasn't the house for us anymore. I resisted the thought for several months. But all of these "signs" just kept popping up. The final nudge happened one day while we were working in our tiny front yard. A couple down the street told us they had sold their house...for a chunk more than what we had originally paid for ours. Even though the housing market was tanking in a bad way, our neighborhood was still sought after, and houses were still selling. When Jay came along, we had gone from two incomes down to one. At times it got pretty tight, so the idea of having more house for a smaller payment was pretty darn appealing! So one day, I casually mentioned to The Hubbs that I thought we might want to look into selling our house. I was absolutely shocked when he said he had been considering the same thing, but never thought I would go for the idea!
We called our Realtor, PJ, who is absolutely amazing. We told her we wanted to know if she thought we could sell our current home, and find a bigger home with a bigger yard for less money. I half expected her to laugh or tell us we were nuts...but she didn't. She thought we could do it!
To be perfectly honest, when PJ said we could do it, my heart kind of sunk. I loved our house, and even though I just knew we were supposed to sell it, I had really been hoping that we wouldn't have to. But after a lot of thinking and more than a few tears, we came up with a plan. We wanted to buy a house that we could renovate!
Things went pretty smoothly, and before we knew it, we had accepted an offer on our house. It was good news, and also scary news. We had essentially sold our house...but we hadn't been able to find a new one yet! This is when the real spiritual journey really began for me. I had gone from knowing we were supposed to sell our old house, to staring down the prospect of selling our house...without having a new home to move into. The housing market was in the dumps, and home loans were getting harder and harder to get. What if we sold our house and then couldn't get another one!? Or what if we couldn't find one that worked for us!? I was literally freaking out. I knew that God had been pushing me towards this, but I wasn't quite sure I was ready to trust Him to get me throughout his. It may sound silly, but for me, this was a real journey! I would feel great about things one day, and spend half the next day in tears. I spent way more time than I should have scouring the entire area for houses. We looked everywhere in our area! I ccompulsively scoured through hundreds of real estate listings, and drove by anything that even looked like a remote possibility. We looked into HUD homes, and HUD 203k homes. It was a mess, and so was I.
One day, I had absolutely had it. So I prayed, but instead of asking God to help me through this or to help me trust in Him...and just begged Him to carry me for a little while. I told Him I was tired of worrying, and that I just needed a break from it all. That I just couldn't do it by myself anymore. I felt defeated and ashamed that I wasn't strong enough to trust Him on my own.
Well, that Sunday after church The Hubbs and I saw a new Realty sign out in front of a house in the neighborhood right across the street from our church. (The very neighborhood that I had originally said I wanted to move to when we had first started looking for houses. It is full of cute houses built in the 1950's with huge yards and loaded with charm. But it's a hard neighborhood to get into because the houses retain their value really well.) We got out of our car and looked around the outside of the house for a few minutes, and decided that we would definitely call PJ to schedule an appointment to see the inside of the house. Just as we were getting back into our car to leave, the owner of the house pulled up in her car! She asked us if we would like to see the inside of the house. Ha ha it was green, and needed a substantial amount of cosmetic work, but I knew it was the house for us! :0)
It is amazing, how when you let go, and relinquish your "control" over things...they all fall into place. God answered all of my prayers, in his way, which is much better than anything I could have imagined. And most importantly, He taught me a very valuable lesson. Sometimes I just have to trust Him, to let go of my fears, and stop trying to control the situation. I am SO thankful for the things this spiritual journey has taught me, andeven more thankful for the closer relationship I now have with God.
As I type this, I am actually sitting here one of the many pairs of paint clothes I now own, because when I am finished typing, I am heading out to our sun room to finish texturing the ceiling! I love our new house!! When I look back, even though this whole process was one of the hardest things I have ever done, I am SO grateful that I am here today. This house has given us so much more than just a new home! We watched our family really come together to help us turn this house into our home. Parents, grandparents, and even aunts and uncles, all came and worked themselves silly teaching us, and helping us work to bring our vision for this house to life. It is one thing to know that you love your family, but for me, this whole experience has made me grateful for all of them in a whole new way! We are also much closer to our church now, which allows us to be more active church members. Before our church was a place we went on Sundays, but now it feels more like a home. We have gotten to know the people much better, and feel more spiritually connected than we ever have before. Even our neighbors here are amazing! I actually like seeing them, and have spent more time talking to them than I intended to on more than one occasion! They are amazing people, and people I feel good about Jay growing up around. We are so blessed and so thankful to have our new home, and surprisingly not just for the reason we originally wanted.
So what about you, has God answered any of your prayers? If you have missed a previous Journal Jar Tuesday, or just what to know what they are all about, you can click on the Journal jar Tuesday tab at the top of my blog, and I hope you'll join me next week for Journal Jar Tuesday #9!
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I love reading your journal jar, because I learn so much about you that I never knew! This story inspires me and helps me remember that God is watching out for each one of us!
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