In all our years of marriage, I haven't really longed for a house. It seemed like it might be a good idea for when we retired. But in the here and now, we had planned to go overseas for missions. Our plans changed when God brought Apartment Life into our universe, and then even more when He gave Eric the vision for starting Community Northwest. We didn't know for how long God would have us doing this, so we just served with a "God will show us when we are done" attitude.
As we served in Community Northwest, I felt the strong calling to be right in the trenches of living and serving in an apartment community. I would even say I prided myself on that fact. That is until about a year ago. Eric's parents started talking to us about the possibility of buying the house next door. At first I was completely opposed, but I came around fairly quickly as I saw Eric's excitement and the potential to fix up a house.
It's a long story, but the quick version is that their neighbor passed away from cancer and had no living relatives. We kept waiting for months to see what would happen with the situation, whether the bank would be open to a short sale since we didn't want to pay as much as what he owed. Or if they would foreclose, and we could try to get it then. Nothing happened, and the bank wasn't even talking to the executor. So frustrating. So we decided to just wait and build up some nest egg savings.
Then Bailey, our adopted dog popped into our lives. We aren't supposed to have pets here, so we knew we were/are putting the owner in a tough place. It's not like you can hide a dog. In looking for new apartments, I found the prices for houses in the area pretty reasonable. So that jump started an actual house search. We found two we loved with great potential, both foreclosed and both needing work.
In the process, our nest egg savings kept getting used for car repairs, to the tune of $4000 in 3 months. :( So as we were trying to negotiate with the banks, we were asking them to cover any and everything that would require cash on hand. They weren't so interested in that.
This last house that I had really come to love, was just priced a bit too high for us. We qualified, but were still bare bones in our savings and the monthly mortgage and other bills would be higher than we really wanted.
To top it off, we restarted Financial Peace University last Sunday, and Dave Ramsey's first lesson is the need to have a 3 to 6 months emergency fund. Eric took that to heart. He really felt that to enter into something so big, we have got to build that emergency fund up.
Hours and hours of researching, months of dreaming, a fun afternoon of looking at paint samples, watching HGTV for fun decorating ideas, and now we have to put that dream on hold. I feel devastated. I know he is right, but like I titled my post, I don't go backwards very well. I feel like I only know how to go forward...running. I push and push until I get my way. Pretty hard for Eric to feel at times as if he is truly the leader of our home. I know I need to follow him 100% in this, but I must confess, I've been throwing a bit of an inner tantrum/pity party inside my head all day
The funny thing is that I never really had this dream of feeling settled before. In fact, even now I feel restless here at this apartment. I'm ready to move on. But to what? I thought it was a house. Now I don't know.
Please pray that I will find my rest and peace in God wherever we live. The chorus of this new song by Audrey Assad has been running through my head for a couple of days now, and really resonates with my heart.
And I'm restless, I'm restless
'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You
I'm restless, I'm restless
'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You
Oh God, I wanna rest in You
My I truly seek out His peace, and not dwell on feeling restless!
