Doug and I have been trying to get a new house. We walked in to a fixer upper on 4 acres and it just felt like "home". There were beamed cathedral ceilings, gigantic windows, built in bunk beds, built ins in general like you wouldn't believe, including a bench seat surrounded by a built in bookcase. It had a barn for storage and even a second level for whatever we'd want, kids' playhouse maybe someday. Every window I looked out of I saw green trees. It even had an old apple tree on the property.
I've been thinking about this property non stop for 3 weeks. Talking to inspector and contractors, planning, dreaming. I've imagined our family in every nook of that house. Doug talked to the neighbor to get a feel for the neighborhood and to sleuth some stuff out since it is now bank owned.
Long story short, the bank rejected our first 2 offers, and since it is uninhabited and winterized you can't test things like the water, well, or septic. It's from 1955 out in the country and they had oil heat. Which you can't test since everything is off, and what we read about that it may or may not be a nightmare. Just too many unknowns, and the bank wouldn't budge. So we had to walk away. We have a reno budget, but not enough to rebuild this house from the entire inside out.
And I am super disappointed about it.
I think actually overly disappointed about it. And so here I am, after crying for a couple hours, and saying stuff to my husband I'm not even sure I mean, and here I am trying to work it out "on paper".
We said we'd live here 5 years and then move, and here we are 9 years later and I kinda feel "trapped". And some that is I haven't wanted to leave our neighborhood which I do love... but there's been nothing to "make me want to move" ... until this house.
Everyone just keeps saying "oh they'll be another" and it just makes me feel so alone like, no that house pretty much was made for me, and I just feel so unknown when they say that. (Which I know is stupid because a house is not my identity.. but here I am crying sitting on the couch thinking that anyway).
It just makes me question like does God even have good things for me? Which I KNOW is not true, look how MUCH He's given me. And my mom had even prayed that God would either give us this house, or save us from it. So He could quite literally be answering her prayer. And I know He is good, THIS VERY DAY we got news that the tests Doug's dad had to look to see if he had some cancer somewhere came back good. We'd been praying so hard about that!!!! God is SO GOOD!!! But yet here I am on the couch with my pity party. I don't understand.
My daughter's ABC Jesus Loves Me 4s homeschool curriculum has a weekly character to learn and this week's was "contentment". And I read that at the beginning of the week and I wondered to myself if that was going to be a foreshadowing. To learn to be content in my small, but paid off house. To be content with my stressful, but bill-paying job. To be content with the constant meal-making and cleaning up/ laundry folding/ argument breaking up/ cleaning/ being needed and instructing/ always interrupted phase of life because I am BLESSED to have a family to care for.
I'm pretty sure that's it in a nutshell. Thanks for listening. 😌
