Ahhh love this day to relax and focus on a little free writing with Five Minute Friday. Learn about it and join in here! Today’s word prompt is: depend.
START
A peek into my drive home from work last week – “God, I don’t know what to pray for. I know you can sell our house fast. You can provide a cash offer and in days it can close. You can do that. It isn’t that I don’t believe it. I just don’t know what to pray.”
Since June 6th of this year, I have learned in a more powerful way how much I need to depend on the Lord. That was when I hit the road from Arizona to our new adventure in Michigan were definitely hard won. As the days in our new life have gone by, I wondered why it had to be so hard. In truth I knew that God wasn’t taking it easy on me because I needed to be strengthened. If it is always easy, how is strength built? Of course it never really has seemed easy, but to be fair, I brought on plenty of the hard in my life on myself.
Now to be fair here, I can’t hardly concentrate on all the intricacies of the word “depend” because I have to share that after 109 days on the market, our home in Arizona sold! And it sold in only a way God can do (I’ll get to that later). Our home has been in the process two times before this one. In those times we have had two buyers drop out and it has crushed us because each time we had to start the long count again and each time we were closer to winter here in Michigan and the end of the best buying season in AZ. There is also the fact that rentals here are not inexpensive. The first one I found that had too many people in front of me was $1200 a month, and the neighborhood wasn’t even that great. The rest just kept getting higher. Gratefully we thanked God for the temporary home in the woods which was affordable but not winter able. I digress.
As far as the sale goes, I know God wasn’t waiting for us to be good enough to deserve our home to be sold. It is easy to wonder sometimes as children do if there was something we could do to make things just happen. Maybe God is not quite happy with how we are responding. I don’t believe that was it. He knows why it took the time that it did. I think that we weren’t supposed to buy the home that we wanted to buy. I also believe we are supposed to be strengthened in this time of lack and wait. I believe that this wait is for our best and our good. I also believe that God was placing us in a place of sole (and soul) dependence on Him. I mean I took a pay cut to work for a ministry, my husband left a job and had no job for about six weeks, that is dependence on God to provide. And He did. Our needs were met.
I think He has my perfect home in mind, and right now we are going to enjoy very soon a perfect rental in town that we can just enjoy and afford. It will also be minutes from work PRAISE GOD!
Oh so what God did do? And trust me on this, it was God. Our two bedroom, one bath home Was pending sale on the 25th with a cash offer (and not one of those desperate to sell awful offers) and closed on the 29th. Who can do that? God. I absolutely love my Abba Father. Don’t you?
STOP
I pray that today you will find the love and comfort you need from the Lord whether for you or someone you love. Thanks for celebrating a moment with me today.
“It is easy to wonder sometimes as children do if there was something we could do to make things just happen. Maybe God is not quite happy with how we are responding.”
“I also believe we are supposed to be strengthened in this time of lack and wait. I believe that this wait is for our best and our good.”
I really resonate with these sentences from your post, Kelly. I’ve been in a place where i need to rely on God to help me be content with what I have right now, doubts and all. It’s hard to see how exactly you are being strengthened in a wait. At least, I’ve been feeling that way a lot.
I read a really good book while I’ve been in a wait and your post reminded me of it too: When God Says Wait by Elizabeth Laing Thompson. She talks about waiting on a house too in a chapter. ☺️
Thank you for sharing this and reminding me God is good again.
Thank you so much Julia. I just might need to look for Elizabeth’s book. It sure seems like “wait” has been a theme. While awaiting the sale of our home, I kept looking for inspirational stories, and I found this post by Barb Piel “What I Learned While Waiting on God While Selling My House.” It helped, but reading that her wait was like 5 years gave me the shakes!
Thank you for visiting my post. I will be praying for you.
Love your testimony of God’s faithfulness and provision, especially the idea of ‘sole and soul dependence’ on Him. God bless you in your new home(s). Your FMF neighbour #56
Thank you so much for visiting Liz. And thank you for the blessing. I believe God is going to bring something special. Well, hasn’t He already? 🙂
Yes I love my Abba Father! So happy things are working out for you! I’m over in the 8 spot this week.
Thank you for visiting Tara! I’ll definitely be by. Have a wonderful week!
So glad to hear your good news, Kelly! That has been a long wait but I’m glad your house has finally sold. So true that we can’t always understand God’s timing or why he makes us wait but we have to trust that he has a good plan for us, and I think it is often in times when we can’t depend on other things that we learn we can depend on God. Praying that you will find the right place in Michigan soon!
Thank you always for your encouragement Lesley. I am so grateful for it. God’s timing is always best, and we definitely learned so much in the waiting time, and of course there are certainly others who have waited longer for their answers (well to be honest there is always something we are waiting on). I am glad that the Lord brought us closer to Him and I pray that I will not forget this. I am glad I have been blogging a bit of it. 🙂 Thanks for your prayers! I am looking forward to what place the Lord brings! 🙂
So glad that you got the sale, Kelly…but leaving heaven On Earth…sorry, Arizona…for MICHIGAN???????
Oh, well, God does give compelling reasons, and I have lived in New Jersey.
Sorry. Noo Joisy. Got to get the patois right.
And for the record, the U.P. is one of the loveliest places on Earth.
#1 at FMF this week.
https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2017/09/your-dying-spouse-368-my-hero-hiroo-fm.html
Thank you for visiting Andrew. It is always a blessing to hear from you. I have to say that as much as we loved Arizona, we were definitely ready to move on when God opened the door we went for it and probably a little quicker than some would like, but God is working it all out. I never lived in New Jersey but lived for a good long time in Rhode Island & Maine. And if you catch me driving in really bad traffic, surrounded by awful drivers…you’ll hear it in my accent. God bless you!
Great to hear about your house sale, Kelly. It’s so hard to trust during these times of uncertainty and waiting … and depending. Thanks for sharing this part of your journey.
Thank you for coming by Jeannie and for all of your encouraging posts. I am learning so much for the FMF community! God bless you!
Kelly, what beautiful, exciting, thrilling news that your house sold! I love your perspective in all of this. God wasn’t waiting for you to somehow deserve for your house to sell. Fact is, His ways are higher than our ways, and His plans than our plans. And His plans are always the best plans. Even when it means we wade through uncertainty and wondering. It’s so exciting to know you’re able to really jump into this chapter in your life now.
Doing a little happy dance for you!
Oh Jeanne, thank you so much! I have more to celebrate today, we are in our new in-town rental and have internet!!!! God is so good! I am also so grateful to my husband for deciding to let us just be rather than jump into another purchase. It will be nice just getting to know our new town. 🙂 Thank you always for your encouragement!
Kelly,
It is inspiring to hear your story. We are in a time of waiting. A very long time. It helps to be reminded of God’s work in others who have waited. So happy that you can move forward.
Thank you so much Stephanie. I am happy to put one part of our waiting story behind us, and look forward to enjoying a time of being and digging in. I was really excited to go to a women’s Bible study this week and also a monthly women’s gathering held by a local church. I am praying for your waiting time. I pray that you will be delighted with the reward from our God.