Lessons Learned - Trust and Obey

***Farm Hunting Update:  We looked at a property last night!  Kinda neat how it worked, but Emi came up to William and I yesterday morning and said she had found THE house!  We looked at the pictures and though we thought the property was pretty good, the house was not really ideal.  But, since we care more about the property than the house, AcCOWntant Willie made the call. 

 

Turns out it is for sale by owner and the owner was a friendly man and his wife who welcomed us into their home last night to take a look around.  We were all six swept off our feet by the property and the house!  This property and home met our minimum requirements as well as every one of our "ideals."  The house was so welcoming and the space was fantastic!  We ended up staying for almost two hours just visiting with this sweet couple.

 

They have lived in the home for over 30 years, but recently found out that the husband has terminal cancer.  So they are moving to spend his last years on a trout stream!!

 

We are seriously praying about this property and are very excited about it.  Now, I am not sure if this is the one God has picked out for us, or maybe He just wanted us to meet this sweet couple so we could pray for them.  But it was a great evening and we are excited!***

Lessons Learned - Trust and Obey

We have lived in our current home for over 12 years.  I love my house!  It is definitely on the small side, especially for 6 people, but we have never felt as if we were cramped or needed more space.  The Lord has met our family's needs through this house.

I still remember the day we walked in the front door to look at the house!  My husband, AcCOWntant Willie (I still crack myself up with this!!), immediately said, "This is the house."  I was not really digging it!  The house had nothing to really set it apart from every other one we looked at and in the middle of the back yard there was a really strange looking tree that looked like a bullet!  Me, being the good, submissive (ummm....well, at least I try!) wife, went with it. 

One thing I have failed to mention is that I am a weeeee bit of a control freak.  It is a huge weakness that I struggle with.  So as we are buying this house 12+ years ago and things started to happen that I could not keep up with, much less control, I got a little stressed!  Okay, maybe more than a little!  I ended up breaking out in hives and having parts of my face go numb!!

Long story short, I ended up in the hospital for a week.  Not because of my hives, but because a test they ran to check on the hives and facial numbness came back indicative of meningitis.  Turned out it wasn't, but I am REALLY trying to keep this long story short!!

Once we finally moved into this house, I had no desire to ever move again!  I ended up loving my house and really, REALLY not wanting to go through the buying process again. 

Over the past year or so, we really began to feel that this might be the time to go.  Not because we are not satisfied with what we have been blessed with, but because we just felt it was time.  Then AcCOWntant Willie said..."It is time."  In all of the time we have prayed about moving, he never had a peace or a clear answer to go, now he does.

So....move up to a couple of days ago on Sunday.  I woke up wayyy too early and decided I would do some mortgage research.  We went ahead and pulled our credit reports and scores.  Well, I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that they were lower than what I had expected.  You see, I am learning that credit scoring is a bit of a game and there is a certain way to play.  We have not played correctly.  I thought our scores would be as high as they come!  We pay our bills on time, we had several credit cards early in our marriage, but we paid them off and closed them up.  Our cars are paid off and we have paid a sizable amount of our current house off. 

Guess what the reason is for the low score??!!  Go ahead, take a guess!!  Is it because we are in too much debt??....no!  Maybe we pay things late??...no!

What we owe on our home is lower than the average amount for our income and our house payment is lower than the average amount!!!  CRAZY!!  So, because we have not gotten in over our heads in a mortgage payment, they penalize our credit score!

This set my control freak self off into a bit of a tizzy for the morning.  I  kept thinking that I had just let the whole Internet world (or at least the 10 of my faithful family and friends who try to appease me by reading this!) know we were going to move and now our credit scores are low!!! 

Well, I might have become a bit distressed and grumpy!  I also began to doubt that we should move.  I mean, who can go up against a low credit score??!!  Our Sunday morning was definitely NOT conducive to worship.  Luckily, we are a family who laughs, so by the time we got to church, everyone was making "loving" fun of me and my behavior.  That being said though, I was still doubting.

Then worship began.  Immediately the Lord touched my heart, softened it and gently impressed on me the flaw in my behavior that morning.  Then the sermon began.  He talked about when the Lord told the Israelites to move.  They sent twelve spies to look at the land and the spies came back and reported a great land flowing with milk and honey!  But....there was a LARGE obstacle.  The current residents were big...REALLY big.  And really powerful!  In the end, they did not obey the Lord because the obstacle looked too big.

OUCH!  We got in the car after church and everyone was looking at me!  "I know, I know!  I got the message!"  I asked the Lord and my sweet family for forgiveness. 

You see, I too heard the plan!  The Lord has clearly said...move.  I saw the first obstacle though and wanted to run in the opposite direction, just like the Israelites. 

We found out yesterday that though our score is not as high as it can get, my panic was for naught, because it is still considered high.  Though I still think it is crazy that you are penalized for managing your credit well, but that is for another post!!

I am thankful for a Lord who loves me enough to lovingly point out my sin and He doesn't leave it at that!!  No, he gently picked me up on Sunday and put me back on His path, forgave my actions and is ready to walk ahead with us on this journey that He has planned!