Marking a stone of remembrance of home selling: the story of a conflicted heart

Dear Awesome Readers,

It has been some time since I last wrote, and I wanted to give you an update. When I last wrote, we were trying to sell our home. Four days after my post went live, we got an offer on our home. The Lord really showed His hand throughout this whole moving process, purifying my heart, and drawing me to His heart through prayer. So today, I write you from a new home. I have tried to write a few different times about it, and I am hoping this letter style of informing will help me to get the words out from my heart to this internet page.

As we got ready to move, one of Daniel’s cousins passed away. About two weeks before our move was scheduled, his cousin was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident. Her husband was carried to the hospital. Due to her husband being severely injured, the funeral did not come soon after her passing in hopes that her husband would be able to attend. As our move drew closer, we found that the funeral would be the same day as our move. We really wanted to attend and support the family, no matter how small it seemed. We doubted that we would be able to rearrange our move, but we went to the Lord and asked Him if we could somehow attend the funeral. God held the plans to our days in His hands, and we knew that if anyone could make it happen, He could. So I talked to the owners we were purchasing from.

We bought our home for sale by owner, which is a story in and of itself. In March of 2015, I went to visit this home, and I met the sweet home owner. I had called her because a long time college friend said her neighbor was selling her home. We needed more space for the kiddos, especially if we were to widen our family or even our ministry. But after visiting in March 2015, (me alone) we decided that it was out of our price range. We had paid off our previous home because we are extremely frugal and do not believe in carrying a large debt, and we were looking to move to a slightly larger home with a smaller price. At this point, I should say that when I worked, I believed I was going to go to seminary and onto the mission field, so I had saved most of my earnings as a young person in my twenties. I also hoped that when it came time for us to sell our home, it would be because our family had all been called on mission. In fact, when I went to see the home, I was conflicted. Larger space or on mission?

About three months later, I got a call from the home owner. She said she and her husband had placed their home on the market, and as they prayed for its future owners, our names continued to pop up. They are in their 70’s and needed a home without stairs. As of yet, Daniel had not seen the home. So I went to see it again. And then the whole family went to see it. Everyone, including my steadfast husband, fell in love. Daniel, being the most frugal of the two of us, said it was not too giant or overly big, but the right size. So in August of 2015, we placed our old home up for sale. We made a contract with the owners of the new house, and they for some strange reason gave us 9 months to sell our home, which meant we had until May of 2016. From August to December, we did serious work on our old home, readying it to sell. No one came to see it. In January, we listed with an agent, and then we coursed through multiple showings. As the deadline of the contract approached, I wavered in my steadfastness, but as I mentioned in The Holiness of Selling your Home, I laid it all in His hands. It sold days before we entered May 2016, and we took ownership before the close of May.

The list of reasons not to buy the home coursed through my head. There were no trees in the backyard. Moving meant still no seminary for me, as we would have a house payment again, and the tension in my heart grew. As people came to look at our home, we went to look at other homes. Our agent made a case against our future home, and so we decided to look and see. We knew we wanted to stay in the same school district. No matter what we looked at, bigger, smaller, or in between, no one liked any home as much as the one we already had a contract on. Multiple things arose, and God steadily took care of them all.

I am prone to doubt, and I already told you how I had to surrender. Four days later, on the five-year anniversary of the tornado that destroyed my hometown (a date significant to me), an offer was made. We accepted it. In March I’d applied for a trip to South Africa, and on the same day, I was to find out if I had been chosen. My mom had eye surgery the same day, so at the hospital, I fielded texts from my agent on the home offer, awaited news of my mom’s eyes, and watched my emails for eager anticipation to see if I’d been accepted to go to Africa in September. I knew that it was in God’s hands. The house sold, mom’s eyes were fixed so she could see again, and the door to Africa was closed. That particular day, I accepted God’s path.

Even after we’d accepted the offer, we looked to see if there were other homes more suitable, cheaper, acceptable, smaller. And in the end, we stayed with the plan to move to this home.

So as we’d prayed about Daniel’s cousin and attending her funeral, I couldn’t help but ask God why He would move us now, in such a fragile time. He had the days planned. In fact, I am certain that when the previous homeowners set the date at 9 months, it was the foretelling of when we would move here. As I reached out, my now friend and former owner said that the house was almost ready for us to move into. She and her husband had moved out the previous week, and they were just getting it ready for us. She said at the earliest we could move in on Thursday. So I said, “Yay!” That same day, the Tuesday before moving day, I quickly called the moving company to see if they could move us from Saturday up two days to Thursday. They said yes. My prayers were being answered and I was humbled and brought to tears upon hearing her ability to change the date.

We could move and attend the funeral. God’s work was so evident that I shared it often on Facebook. But when people would ask about the move, I felt shy and small.

That same week, a dear blog friend and her husband were in South Africa. While in Africa, she’d seen something I’d posted on social media and inquired about the sell of my home. This resurfaced the sadness I had that I was moving to a larger home and not to Africa. The same Tuesday I was humbled by God’s movement of the moving date, she texted me that maybe one day I could come visit her in South Africa. I took it as a tender nod from God that He saw my heart.

On Facebook, I asked a select number of people to pray blessing on our home, but all this ending up doing was making me feel more insignificant and small, as my friend base is small right now. I felt alone.

As I packed and unpacked, I was grossed out by the amount of things we own. I felt shy and wished I’d never shared anything about God’s gracious faithfulness on social media because everyone knew about the move and asked me about it when they saw me. I knew that most people, if not all, would misunderstand. As a result, I wanted to hide even more. My daughter mentioned that she was finally moving into a larger home when all her friends said her house was “so small.” I didn’t want my kids to want the wrong the things. My mom immediately bragged about my “big house” as soon as she saw it. This movement, though I felt the hand of God on it, was not something I wanted others to emulate. Follow me – into a bigger home? No, just no. For my children and even for my parental units, both mom and in-laws, they seemed to see it as a “status” change. I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me in parenting and keeping my kids heart’s pure as to the why of a bigger space. It is and was contrary to all I believe. Yet, I knew that God’s ways are not my ways, that God knows my heart even if others do not, that He alone is responsible for where He leads and the doors He opens and closes.

When I inquired of the Lord about this whole mess, the verse that would pop into my head was this,

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

I felt overwhelmed by His goodness and delight in me. The past year and a half, I have been at my worst. My absolute messiest, sin always at the surface and in my face and everyone else’s too, and although I knew God had not left me, His delight in my mess was not something I thought about.

When people ask me about the move, I mumble a bit and say little because my thoughts are complex. I don’t deserve a spacious place. I don’t want others to think I am consumed with an American dream that I have gotten. Rather, I want this home to be a place of ministry, a place of expansion to His Kingdom.

It is quite ironic, considering my words about church in 2014. I feel so much a consumer, and I hate that feeling. I don’t want to consume or teach anyone to do the same.

We’ve been in the house two weeks. Already, we’ve invited five different children over, whereas at the old place, that would not have happened. I cannot tell you why or why not. So maybe, just maybe, there is a plan for this spacious place. Yet, one of my kids is talking about “my house is bigger than your house,” and so I tell the story of why that’s not important and hope that maybe it stinks and that I am not raising children to have a heart of greed instead of a heart for Him.

These words are me writing the story, marking a stone of remembrance of home selling. I know they were long, and I hope you were able to make some sense out of it all, and even that you were blessed in seeing God’s movement. Thank you for reading.

I am hoping to get back to writing more frequently.

Til then. Love and grace from the Lord Jesus Christ to you!

Jamie