He Gives and Takes Away: Part 2

Update: At the moment, it is 3:30 Friday afternoon. My husband came home from work early, and we filled the prescription for the pills that are supposed to induce my miscarriage. I took them at 2:30, and since I'm in a period of waiting, I thought I might finish this post that I started yesterday. I hope you enjoy reading about our crazy life.

March 25, 2008 will go down as quite a day in the story that is our lives so far.

Let me give you a little bit of what has brought us to where we are today.

September 9, 2007: 3 months after deciding to pursue a move to Michigan, and 2 1/2 months after moving in with my mom, we make the move across the country, and move into a house that belongs to a friend of ours, and has been sitting vacant. We are praying that our townhouse in Colorado sells, so we can buy a house in Michigan.

October 2007: We get an offer on our townhouse, and have a closing date sometime around the end of October. We find a great deal on a home that would need a lot of work, but it has a really big backyard, and we think we might be able to look past all the imperfections in the house.

Two days before closing on the townhouse, the deal falls through, and we have to pull our offer on the home out here. After doing this, we think we may have been too hasty in putting an offer out there, and decide to listen to the Lord more.

We also find out that our friend needs us to move out of her house. In two weeks. We scramble to find somewhere to live, and our realtor fixes us up with a great house that is on the market (one of her listings.) The owners are comfortable renting to us because they trust Judi (our realtor), and we get a deal on the rent if we show the house while we're living there. It's a beautiful house, and we can't complain.

December 2007: We think we may have a renter for our townhome in Colorado (we decided not to sell it now), and we start looking for a home again. We find a cute 4 bedroom house with a big play 'boat' in the backyard and think it would be a good home for us. We're not crazy about the yard, and the house is kind of small, but it has a great kitchen, and it feels like a HOME.

January 2008: Our tenant signs an 18 month lease in Colorado, and we can put an offer on a house. On January 16, we write an offer for the house 'with the boat.'

December-March: I start to become friends with a girl named Joyce in my MOPS group who lives in a neighborhood we had never thought about before. We see houses near her show up every once in a while, but they are all out of our price range. Finally, one shows up, and we go check it out, only to see that the siding is falling off, and the inside of the house is in bad shape. We figure that neighborhood is out of our range, and move on.

March 2008: After two months of waiting, and no word, our realtor encourages us to start looking at houses again. We do, and don't see anything we like online. We have a busy month, with Becca's birthday, Easter, and my mom coming to visit, so we're in no rush to look at houses. Our realtor is persistent, though. We look through the houses she sent us, and she picks one for us to see on the 24th.

Sunday, March 23: After naps, we drive by the house we're going to see the next day. It is listed as a 5 bedroom, but it is in Joyce's neighborhood, and we wonder what is wrong with it. When we see the house, we are amazed. It looks like something from a dream. There are footprints all around the house, and people pull up behind us as we're looking. This is a hot property, apparently.

12:00 Monday, March 24: I leave the girls with my mom, and meet my hubby and realtor at this house. We are blown away. The house has 4 bedrooms upstairs. A big master, with a walk in closet, and it's own bathroom. The other 3 bedrooms are good sized, and there is a full bathroom off of the hallway. On the main floor, there is a big living room with a gas fireplace, an eating area, a dining room, a kitchen, and a laundry room. There is also a finished basement with a big bedroom, and attached full bath. This house has everything that has been on our list.

Our realtor tells us that this house has 4 offers on it, so if we want a chance, we need to act now. We figure we have nothing to lose, and put an offer out there. We are pretty comfortable with our decision, just leaving it in Gods' hands.

Tuesday, March 25, 11:45 a.m.: We are at the doctor's office. The doctor is explaining my options, as far as finishing this miscarriage. While he's speaking, my phone, and my husband's phones are ringing continuously. After we get out to the car, we each have 2 messages from our realtor telling us to call her immediately.

My husband calls, and we hear her excited voice shouting "You got the house! Do you believe what an unbelievable deal this is?"

So, my friends, that is the "He gives" part of the post I started on Tuesday. On one of the saddest days of our lives, He held out hope for us. A possible light at the end of this moving tunnel that we have been stuck in for the last 6 1/2 months.

This house is a foreclosure, which is why it is such a good deal. It is the lowest priced house in a very nice neighborhood, and it needs some major cleaning, painting, and flooring replaced. Once this is done, however, I believe this house could be our dream home.

My hubby is meeting the inspector at the house on Saturday. Because it is a foreclosure, the inspection has to be incredibly thorough. If everything goes well, and nothing big is found, then we should close on the house in a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks!!

Here are some pictures of the home. (Can you tell I'm excited?)

This is taken from the back deck

This is the front of the house, and yard

This is the back of the house

Part of the living room and fireplace

The eating area and kitchen

So...the hubby is going to meet the inspector at the house at 9 tomorrow morning, and the appraiser will be there at 10. He also met with our financial guy today, and our paperwork has been submitted for our loan. Things are moving ahead full force. Now we're just praying that God's will be done. (But a home sure would be nice!)