A Moving God-Story

What a crazy week or so this has been!  Last Wednesday, we had a mix-up with our babysitter, and we ended up having a date a week early.  On that date, Jim and I talked about the idea of downsizing.  Jim had read a book by Dave Ramsey and his daughter regarding teaching kids about money.  It sparked the idea that while previous generations sacrificed to make their kids' lives better, our generation was content to just live quite comfortably, save here and there, and just hope that's enough.  For us, we live in a really nice house, in a nice community, and love where we live.  

But, we are struggling to save for college for the kids and for retirement.  We can save a little, but it's just that.  Plus, our current house is a lot to take care of.  And we have too much stuff.  I know, first-world problems.  So we started thinking about downsizing, and on our date we talked some general numbers (I say general because if we were really talking numbers, we would be busting out the Excel spreadsheets ;-).  At the end of the conversation, it seemed like a good idea to pursue, so we left the conversation with the thought that it was wise to look into it more and start pursuing it.   This was Wednesday night.  

Oh, and Jim asked if it would be okay to just throw the house up on Zillow. Just because.

Thursday afternoon at three Jim calls me.  He seems almost at a loss for words.  "Um... a realtor just called me about the house." "Do you think they're just trying to see if we'll use them to sell the house?" I replied.  "No, he has a client that wants to see the house this afternoon."   A few seconds of stunned silence.  Wow.  Jim had just put our house up about an hour and a half before.  So we agreed to show the house, but the next day so we'd have a chance to at least put away laundry and dishes and straighten up a bit.  The house was nowhere near "show ready."  But, we went ahead and did the best we could to make the house look its best.  

Friday, the family came and saw the house.  Saturday we had an offer.  Sunday, we went back and forth a little, and had a signed contract about 72 hours after Jim put the house on Zillow.  With just one showing.  If you know anything about our house purchasing history, you'll know this is not normal for us.  This was an act of God.  

Now for the next step, where would we go?  We wanted to stay in Greenville and live close enough to Jim's work so that his commute wasn't too bad.  We also wanted to live somewhere near our church family so we could be investing in others and be in community ourselves.  We got a realtor.  Night after night we spent a ridiculous amount of time on Zillow, Realtor.com, and other websites looking for "the one" house for us.  We thought we found "the one" early on, but it was not what we thought it would be... and it had foundation issues.  Ugly paint and hideous wallpaper we can fix, but "if the foundations are destroyed..." :-)  Yeah, we kept looking.  

There were also other factors to consider: schools, community amenities, how safe the neighborhood was, etc.  After all, this next house was the house that we were planning on doing most of our child-raising and memory-making with our kids.  Ethan just turned 10 so 8 more years and he'll be in college.  We couldn't just "settle," we had to find something in our price range but somewhere where we could really make it a home.  We were even willing to live in an apartment for a while if necessary so we could be patient and wait for the right house.  I'm glad that we didn't have to do that!  4-5 kids and 2 dogs in an apartment would be a challenge!  Not to mention the fact that we'd have to move twice.  Ugh.

We visited just three houses in the end.  It felt like a long exhausting process, but it really only took a few days. Wednesday we made an offer.  Thursday we went back and forth... and back and forth.  Friday, after much prayer and deliberation, we agreed on a price with the seller.  

In 8 days, we sold our house and bought another.  My mind and body are still reeling from the craziness!  

Here's the new house:  

Jim's already nicknamed it "The Red Roof Inn" :-).  I told him he should have picked a nicer chain of hotels, but that's okay; we're downsizing after all- we can't name it "The Ritz" ;-).  When we walked in, Verity told us "It stinks!"  We thought she meant she didn't like it at first, but then we stepped in.  It smelled like paint and curry.  An Indian family lived there for 11 years, and it really does smell like curry.  Not that I mind too much.  Just kind of funny.  It has 3 bedrooms and a bonus room, so it'll work great for our family.  The yard is much smaller than our current one, but there's plenty of room for the kids to run around and play (there's also enough room for a pool... we'll see ;-).  

It really has been amazing to see God move in this moving process!  He has directed us and prepared the way for us.  We never could have imagined on our date last week that we'd be in this position!  But God did.  He has been so kind and faithful.  We can't wait to see what he's going to do!

Oh, and before I forget to mention it. The kids- how are they doing with all of this?  The idea of moving was really hard for them.  Really hard (except for Verity who's counting down the days until the move... "How many more days, Mommy?" :-)  Even Ethan who is our optimist was pretty bummed at first.  Micah hoped that the family who looked at our house would say "no."  I understand.  With my dad in the Air Force, we moved a bunch when I was a kid.  I remember how hard it was for me.  

We tried to help them go through this.  We gave them space to be bummed about it, but pointed to the fact that it was clear that God wanted us to move so we just had to trust in His good plan for us.  We hope that they will see His hand in this process, too.  We've kept them up to date on proceedings, tried to explain the process as best as we could, and have given lots of hugs when things are tough.  We've also involved them in the downsizing process.  They had to go through their stuffed animals and chose no more than five animals a piece.  There were some teary eyes that morning!  But they did it with surprisingly great attitudes.  We had talked that morning about being careful to not let "stuff" have a hold on our hearts.  We read the story of the rich, young ruler and compared him to Zaccheus.  One man loved his things more than God.  The other saw the eternal value of treasures in heaven and forsook his earthly wealth.  It was neat to see how the kids were able to connect the story to their worlds.  So thankful for these precious opportunities!  

That's the story... so far!  We know that God has great things in store for us!  He is already revealing our hearts, enabling us to let go of our things and our comforts, and to trust in and cling to Him alone.  We are thankful for our friends and family who are praying for us, advising us, and rejoicing with us.  

Now let the packing commence!  It's only 2 adults, 4 kids, 2 dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree ;-).