This is not the post I want to be typing.
I want to be telling you that the closing on our house went through. That we no longer have to support a mortgage and utilites on a house we are no longer living in. That we have our equity back to be able to put toward the adoption fees that have to be paid off by the end of the year. That we can close the book on that chapter in our lives and live fully present here in our new town.
But the potential buyers wanted out. For the second time. Two offers negotiated. Two acceptance faxes....two dissolutions of the contracts. Uuggg. We're not sure why. But what we do know is what that means for us here. More showings, more trips down to clean, more mortgage payments. And debt to pay bills.
I'm not sure if I shared here, but in the midst of becoming a family, Nathan accepted a pastoral position in a town an hour north of our house. He accepted the call and two days later we learned that Tedy would be ours forever. The house went on the market and then next day we picked up our son. Having a new baby while having a house showing-ready is nothing I ever want to live through again. Packing and moving while trying desperately to attach to our child was stressful. Settling into a new house, new town, new church, new role as full-time mother. And supporting two homes is a miserable proposition. Every decision is filtered through the question, "How can I NOT spend money today."
Last week, on my birthday, we accepted the offer and my first thought was to offer a prayer of praise. "This is it," I thought: the answer to our desperate prayers over the these months. We were free (we thought). God had done it. The timing was perfect. We were supposed to close next week and we would have our equity back to pay off our adoption fees by the end of the year (the deadline). We could afford Christmas gifts.
I thought that would be my testimony. A story of how God swooped in at just the right time and tied our financial woes up in a nice neat bow. Of how we came through ready to face the new year free from the memories of two devastatingly hard years, surrounded by God's provision.
God's provision is going to look a little different next year it seems.
We have never gone hungry.
Never been without shelter, or clothes, or any basic needs. Those have all been met by the Church and His grace. But we have known stress. And uncertainty. We have walked through the valley of the shadow of death this year.
And He continues to be good. In the midst of pain, and poverty, and crushing dissappointment.
I once joked to my husband last year, "Just once I want people to be able to say, 'Hey did you hear about Nathan and Jenny? They made plans and then NOTHING bad happened!"
But that doesn't seem to be our testimony. Our histories fly in the face of those who insist that following Christ fully results in material blessing, and ease. Instead, our lives are continually being lit in ephagy to dying dreams. My hope is that their burning can be somehow transformed into beacons of hope in the One who truly holds our future. Our road to walk seems to more line up with John 16:33 where Jesus told his disciples, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
The things he had been telling them were to remain in Him. That He would do some pruning and that the world would hate them. Yet as Jesus fortold of the trials to come his goal wasn't to rescue them from the awful circumstances of being persecuted from the political powers and ostracized from their culture. His goal was peace. Peace in Him.
That's what I want.
If peace was possible in those dark days of early Christianity.
Then it must be available here. In Iowa.
I want to be telling you that the closing on our house went through. That we no longer have to support a mortgage and utilites on a house we are no longer living in. That we have our equity back to be able to put toward the adoption fees that have to be paid off by the end of the year. That we can close the book on that chapter in our lives and live fully present here in our new town.
But the potential buyers wanted out. For the second time. Two offers negotiated. Two acceptance faxes....two dissolutions of the contracts. Uuggg. We're not sure why. But what we do know is what that means for us here. More showings, more trips down to clean, more mortgage payments. And debt to pay bills.
I'm not sure if I shared here, but in the midst of becoming a family, Nathan accepted a pastoral position in a town an hour north of our house. He accepted the call and two days later we learned that Tedy would be ours forever. The house went on the market and then next day we picked up our son. Having a new baby while having a house showing-ready is nothing I ever want to live through again. Packing and moving while trying desperately to attach to our child was stressful. Settling into a new house, new town, new church, new role as full-time mother. And supporting two homes is a miserable proposition. Every decision is filtered through the question, "How can I NOT spend money today."
Last week, on my birthday, we accepted the offer and my first thought was to offer a prayer of praise. "This is it," I thought: the answer to our desperate prayers over the these months. We were free (we thought). God had done it. The timing was perfect. We were supposed to close next week and we would have our equity back to pay off our adoption fees by the end of the year (the deadline). We could afford Christmas gifts.
I thought that would be my testimony. A story of how God swooped in at just the right time and tied our financial woes up in a nice neat bow. Of how we came through ready to face the new year free from the memories of two devastatingly hard years, surrounded by God's provision.
God's provision is going to look a little different next year it seems.
We have never gone hungry.
Never been without shelter, or clothes, or any basic needs. Those have all been met by the Church and His grace. But we have known stress. And uncertainty. We have walked through the valley of the shadow of death this year.
And He continues to be good. In the midst of pain, and poverty, and crushing dissappointment.
I once joked to my husband last year, "Just once I want people to be able to say, 'Hey did you hear about Nathan and Jenny? They made plans and then NOTHING bad happened!"
But that doesn't seem to be our testimony. Our histories fly in the face of those who insist that following Christ fully results in material blessing, and ease. Instead, our lives are continually being lit in ephagy to dying dreams. My hope is that their burning can be somehow transformed into beacons of hope in the One who truly holds our future. Our road to walk seems to more line up with John 16:33 where Jesus told his disciples, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
The things he had been telling them were to remain in Him. That He would do some pruning and that the world would hate them. Yet as Jesus fortold of the trials to come his goal wasn't to rescue them from the awful circumstances of being persecuted from the political powers and ostracized from their culture. His goal was peace. Peace in Him.
That's what I want.
If peace was possible in those dark days of early Christianity.
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