“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

Be forewarned - This is a rather long story, which I will try my hardest to condense. Yeah, that’s not going to happen, I just realized. So I won’t be offended if you bail out now :) HOWEVER, if you do make it to the end, please do leave a comment as a tribute to your stamina :) You are a true friend and I promise to make you Ba’s Famous French Toast sometime. (is that bribery??)

ANYWAYS, it started around Christmas-time 2008. We were having a conversation with some friends of ours about houses. They had been considering buying one, and we were listening intently, very excited for them and not at all thinking about buying one ourselves.
And then I had a crazy thought (apparently I have them often?) – what if we could buy a house? That is when I slapped myself. I shrugged it off and moved on. It was not in our plan. We’d been married for a grand total of 2 and ½ months. We were going to rent for a while and pay off student loans and then save. That was the plan.
My plan anyways.
The new year rolled around, and my dear friend Meghan and I had been talking about goals for the new year – she forwarded me something from Justin Taylor’s blog written by Donald Whitney:
I printed it out to use in my devotions and immediately zeroed in on #2. “What the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?” I picked a house. And then I slapped myself again. But it was useless because that’s when my crazy idea morphed into a prayer.
Over the next month or two all we did was pray. We prayed for God to make His plan clear and to tell us which foot to put forward next, since we had no idea what we were doing. And quietly, God kept confirming that this “idea” was not just the pizza I had eaten the night before – it truly was Him whispering into my ear to pray for big things. To pray big because I serve a big God. We reached the point where we talked things over with my parents and Mike’s, and decided to switch our game plan from paying off loans aggressively to saving for a house. And all along the way, God has been faithful.

The Practical Side:
God gave us a first-rate real estate agent, Dave Rivell, who has helped many of our friends find houses this past year. We HIGHLY recommend him!
We also have an excellent mortgage consultant, Gary Lehndorff, who specializes in first-time homeowners! And, he not only goes to our church, he also happens to be our realtor’s top-recommendation, so when we told Dave that Gary was our consultant, relationships and reputations were already well under way before we even got there! :)
The sheer fact that there is a stimulus for first-time home owners and that interest rates are so low is a blessing from God to us in this season! We are not the only ones benefitting from it, but we certainly feel the effects of it as though this was a personal gift from God :)
The final practical is that Emily actually found this house for us haha :) She and Ben had seen it, liked it, but decided to look for something different. So she showed it to me, I liked it. I showed it to Mike, he liked it. We showed it to Dave, and he liked it. So we bought it. Emily has promised to not be bitter towards me – I made sure of that before we moved on it :)


The Emotional and Wisdom Side:
All I have to say is that Michael has been a strong pillar for me when my emotions have been tossed to and fro like the ocean in a storm :) He has been steadfast and full of faith, and it has never served me better. I’ve battled doubt, fear, unbelief, and Mike has always been there reminding me that God’s wisdom and perfect timing are always sure things, regardless of how circumstances turn out. There was one night we had been to see a fixer-upper condo that was not what we thought it was – we were looking at it as an investment, and when the numbers proved it would not have the return we were looking for, I threw up my hands and walked away crying. Much like a child. Because of course, this meant that we were NEVER going to find a house. Mind you, this was the first place we had looked at. Ever. Have I mentioned that I am quick to lose heart? That I am often irrational and unnecessarily dramatic? Perseverance is something I’m working on. ANYWAYS, the point is, I was discouraged. Very discouraged. But looking back, I see the wisdom of God in it. That condo was not to be ours (thankfully!), but it WAS to be the starting place. Very recently before this condo came to our attention, I had more or less resigned myself to the fact that we were not going to buy a house this year. The idea and prayers had been great to be sure, but this was clearly an exercise in FAITH for me, not in ACTION. In my heart, I was quietly and slowly moving away from the idea of buying a house for a while, simply praying that if God wanted US to move, HE was going to have to move first. And it was this condo that sparked our interest and got us back on the road to searching for a house. And, honestly, things moved very quickly after that. We went on vacation the week after that. The week after that, we sat down with Dave to tell him what we were looking for. That very night after meeting with him, he found a foreclosure in West Chester, which we went to see the next day. It was not for us. That Saturday, we went out with a list of 6 places to look at. We liked the very first one (the one Emily had shown me), discussed, and put in an offer that afternoon. By Tuesday, we had reached a deal with the seller, signed the contract and had inspection the next Saturday. Did I mention things moved fast?

I think the most exciting part about this whole thing is that I’ve seen what God can do with a whisper of a prayer. And I don’t even mean that figuratively, I mean that literally! Because that’s how it started – a thought, that became a prayer, that God confirmed and then put into action. It’s taught me how to pray big and not put God in a box. It’s taught me how to believe that with God, ALL things are possible. Not just some things, ALL things. And that includes things that are humanly impossible for me ;)

To God be all the glory, for “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” ~ Psalm 118:23