In my last post I talked about our journey to buy a home in Downtown Greenville and how it was a different situation — to recap, we sold our house before finding another house, found a “For Sale by Owner” and loved it, needed a super delayed closing, begged owner to let us buy it & she agreed, and now we are moving!
The biggest thing is how fateful God has been through all of this. Y’all. I don’t think I can really explain how difficult our financing situation was and how grateful we are that the seller was willing to wait for us. We are still in shocked that it all worked out….
But you know what, I shouldn’t be. I prayed for this. I prayed for God to place us in the home He wanted for us. I prayed for the desire for this house to be His desire and if it wasn’t to take it away. I prayed for the outcome He wanted for the situation. I prayed for my attitude to be gracious with a good or not-so-good outcome. I prayed for what He wanted. But on that Thursday night, when we submitted the offer, I told God what I wanted. I told Him I wanted the Red Door House. When we got that initial ‘no,’ instead of being sad, I was able to immediately thank God for whatever plans He had in store.
Which apparently included this house being ours.
I tell you all this because I will admit, I prayed for this house more than I have over anything else. I prayed more for this house than I did for Vince after his accident. I prayed more for this house than I did when Mila was in the NICU. I prayed hard for this house. I had peace during Vince’s accident and Mila’s NICU stay, so honestly I didn’t pray often because I really believed God had it under control. Even while praying over the house, I felt silly. To pray over something so passionately? Especially a house? Bananas.
I’ve always felt like I should pray in a certain way – ask God’s will to be done – I never thought about simply asking God for exactly what I wanted. Even when I was pregnant and knew something was wrong with Mila, my prayer was “Lord, if it’s your will, please heal her. If it isn’t Your will, please place the right care team in place to save her.” I never once thought of just saying “God, heal her” — mostly because I never believed it would ever work that way. I can’t just tell God what I want. It needs to be His desire for me.
But y’all, that isn’t true. He desires to have a relationship with you and He wants us to come to Him with our desires. Will He always answer them? Not always in the way we may want, but He will answer them.
“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
If you missed the first few “parts,” here are some quick links.
Part 1. Selling Our Dream Home
Part 2. Living in the In-Between
Part 3. Buying a New Dream
We started moving in last week and the house is a mess so for now here are some “before” photos 😉
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