What A Ride!

The last 6 weeks have been a roller coaster!!

This about sums it up:

The great news is we sold our house!!  We accepted a contract at the end of July and promptly started looking for a new home (as if we'd ever stopped). 

Sometime around May, T-Bo, my hubby's new blog-friendly nickname, had seen a great house on the market with 4 acres.  We didn't look into it seriously at the time because we couldn't afford both mortgages on a single income.  Then, when we accepted a contract on our home we decided to, well, think seriously about it. 

We went through all of the motions of buying a house.  The offer, the inspections, etc etc.  The process takes forever (for those of you that have bought a house) and we had to extend the closing on our house so that we could possibly close both homes the same day (an effort to not render us homeless).

In an effort to not draw out an entirely too long story, I'll summarize by saying the inspection wasn't entirely satisfactory to us plus the house was pretty close to a flood plain and we were having doubts.  We couldn't see where God was leading us.  The answer just wasn't clear.  We prayed without ceasing; we talked about it with everyone we knew; we just didn't know.

My Facebook status August 30, 2011 read, "Lord, you know I'm thick-headed...make it obvious...thanks."

The whole process reminded me of some other thick-headed people in the Bible:

Jonah and his whale

Abraham and his disbelief

Moses and his self-doubt
   and on the flip side Pharaoh and his plagues

and of course, Doubting Thomas!

I can hear God now, "Seriously?  What will it take to convince you?!"

We found out...

Our most wonderful local loan processor sent T-Bo a map of the property and neighboring flood plain.  T-Bo took one look and called me.  He said, "you're not going to believe this...they (underwriter, not our most wonderful local processor) ran a (certified) flood map on the WRONG HOUSE."

There was our answer...pretty plain.  Get us off this ride!

That was September 9th. With our current house still going through (and we Praised the Lord for that) we needed to find a place ASAP.

We searched the Internet for rentals; looked at 3 Monday the 12th and applied for one that afternoon.  We closed our home Tuesday and moved into our new home Wednesday!!

We were only homeless one night!


So a rental in the middle of the city wasn't what we were looking for, but there is a reason for this.  We're going to settle in for the winter and take our time to find our land of milk and honey. 

Fasten your seat belts.

Three Words...

A lot can be said in only three words. 

You have mail.

I love you.

Pray without ceasing.

Those last three words, "pray without ceasing," can pack a punch.  This is the subject Gman is currently studying in his Bible course.  These three small words from Thessalonians are so important they are repeated through the Bible multiple times:

Psalms 72:15
Matthew 26:41
Mark 14:38
Luke 21:36
Acts 1:14, 2:42 and 10:2
Romans 12:12

Just to name a few...

One of Kiki and Gman's favorite games is praying...no, not kidding.  We pray before meals and very often just random points in our day...grocery shopping, the car, getting haircuts, even once while waiting for Chinese takeout.  Kiki usually initiates the prayer by folding his hands.  He also initiates it's conclusion, whether we're finished or not, with a rousing "MAY-MEN!"

While it's a game for Kiki, these weighty words are not to be taken lightly--pun intended.

We should pray as we wake, pray throughout the day and pray at night.  Always pray...without ceasing.  We pray when we eat, work, rest.  We pray when things are bad but more importantly, pray and praise when things are great, like when Grant got a 97% on his Science test!

Pray without ceasing.


Other powerful words are:

"It's Feline Leukemia."

"We said goodbye."

and

"Rest In Peace."

Unfortunately, last Friday we had to use these words in reference to our precious Ellie May.  My hubby and I found her unresponsive early Friday morning.  I rushed her to the vet where the prognosis was not good.  Her body temperature was very low and she was in the process of total organ shutdown.

Therefore...Momma had a hard decision to make.  I held her one last time and she tried to purr.  I said my goodbye, told her I was so sorry, and let her go.

Then I prayed.


We spent the day remembering Ellie and the two short weeks we had together.  We printed pictures of her and we're making an album.  We'll miss her like crazy.


So...remember to:

Say your prayers

Hug your family

and

Check your mail.