I had a strong desire to move right after we experienced a home invasion in 2016. The Lord soon calmed my heart and I was content to stay if that’s what was meant for us. But I also wanted to move to get closer and more central to places and activities for myself and my girls. I always said that if we ended up moving, if God moved us (because I was convinced it would have to include supernatural intervention), then I would have to share how He worked it all out. So here goes:
A year ago today, we moved into our new home. In December of 2017, our current house went under contract; but with a different buyer. We had no idea it existed then. The buyer evidently backed out on closing day. Afterwards, the house wasn’t removed and re-listed but had a status change so we were told it was a bit of a “ghost” house; meaning, those who may have been interested prior wouldn’t really be aware it was available again.
Our buying this house was contingent on us selling our other house. And that was in serious jeopardy at one point. I had to continuously remind myself that if this wasn’t the house meant for us, there was nothing I could do about it. We had previously seen houses for sale we thought would be perfect for our family only to see them sell before we had a chance to move forward so this was a familiar place but still not easy.
Interestingly enough, when we first saw this house, neither of us thought it would become our home. There were things we liked and things we didn’t. I think because we built our first home, it was hard for me to overlook things that could be changed - plus I’m extremely bad at picturing things without seeing them as a finished product. A few days after we saw this house for the first time, I prayed that God would lead through Septtro. I was in my third trimester of pregnancy, homeschooling, packing and constantly on the phone trying to understand all the nuts and bolts of what a move takes and I just felt like I needed to take a step back. Five days after I prayed that, Septtro said there was a house he kept thinking about. I asked which one and he said it was the one we just saw several days prior. I asked if he wanted to see it again. He said yes. There weren’t many houses we saw more than once so this was a fairly serious thing for us. The day we went to look again, we also looked at another house for sale in the same neighborhood. The differences in the houses seemed to make Septtro more confident to put an offer in on this house. It was priced well. It had a lot of what we were looking for and left room to make it our own.
I must admit, when he talked about making an offer - as much as I wanted to move - I was nervous. The finality of that step seemed so scary. What if this wasn’t the right house? What if this was all a mistake? But I couldn’t exactly trust my emotions at that point in time. I knew I’d wanted to move for a couple years but here it was and I guess that change just felt a little scary.
We closed on both houses the same morning. Everything went very smoothly. And as we moved into our new home, it felt comfortable - like we were meant to be here. I soon found out that many of our neighbors, next door and across the street, I either knew through mutual friends of mine or had known years ago. We even realized more than one of our neighbors also homeschooled. To me, it was confirmation that we were right where we were supposed to be.
I’m so thankful to God for bringing this house to us. And I’m thankful to my husband for being willing to move. I know he loved our first home but as he said to me recently, he “loved me more than that house”. :) Bringing us together and united on, not only moving but also where we moved, was only God’s doing. About a week and a half after we moved, we brought our fifth daughter home to this house. We have since made new memories here and my hope and prayer is that there will be many more to come!
