How to Get from Point A to Point B

So...it's official. Ryan & Rebekah Martin are buying a house. Very scary and adult-ish, but we're overwhelming thankful. Here's how it's played out so far.

Ryan's parents have offered us a down-payment that is a gift as long as we are in a house. If we moved cities someday and went back to apartment living, we give it back. If we leave the country for missional purposes and sell the house, we give it back. Until one of those things would happen, though, it's a huge blessing to us. I think they really want us in a house...perhaps so that we have more than an air mattress to offer them when they come to visit!

We looked at what seemed like a hundred houses last summer, and three times as many listings. Back then we weren't married yet, so it was a lot harder guessing what our joint budget would be and what sort of room we needed, etc. We were naive and excited at the thought, though, so we looked a lot. We ended up finding one house that we really liked...it was a bit small, but we were just going to be newlyweds, so we didn't need much. Then one day my grandmother drove by and happened to notice that the house right next to it was for sale and open. She went inside and fell in love with the house. We went to look at it and also fell in love. After looking at it several times and working through the budget, we were ready to make an offer. Then the phone call came one Sunday afternoon..."someone else just bought the house."

We were devastated. We thought about pursuing the neighboring house again, but just didn't think we could deal with driving by our "dream house" every day on the way to our second choice. End of house search. Apartment lease signed.

A year goes by and we decide to start looking again since the apartment lease would be up soon and we were really getting tired of neighbors who smoked and rapped and who knows what else (side note: it's a GREAT apartment complex...we just got some bad luck with neighbors). Since I work with our realtor, we started looking for fun, which turned into looking for real. Once again, we looked at way too many of them.

One weekend after two days of driving around and looking online, only to find that every single option was bad for one reason or another, I broke down. "We're just not going to find any house that has everything we need in a good neighborhood on our budget." I was done looking. I would rather stay in our apartment for another year than look at any more houses. That was Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday night, I got an e-mail. I guess I had randomly entered my e-mail address on a real estate site in order to look at some listings the day before, and they decided to send me some more. Remember, I was done looking. Done-zo. No way was I going to go to another homes.com website again. But since they were nice enough to send me the e-mail...I guess I can look.

And there it was. A beautiful home that looked like it had everything we could have dreamed of. And at that price? Really? There must be a catch. Don't get your hopes up, kiddo. But it won't hurt to take a look.

Sunday night, our agent was able to get us in after tracking down a key from elsewhere in the neighborhood. First impression: it's perfect. If we don't buy it, it's not because it's not the perfect house...it's because we're not ready to buy one. We committed to pray seriously through that specific house, though, for a week. Several times I walked in on my husband on his hands and knees praying...such a special treat for a wife to see her husband leading that way. We spent a lot of time in conversation with his parents, giving them "Skype" tours with pictures and Google maps. Every conversation gave us more and more peace. Finally, Friday arrived (it seemed like forever!) and we showed the house to my parents. They loved it too. I started getting really excited.

So one week later on the following Sunday, we decided to make the final call before midnight. At 10:28pm I sent a message to our agent letting her know that we wanted to make an offer. The whole 22.5 hours before that were full of prayer, discussion and more prayer. After that message was sent, though, we both had a giddy peace about the decision.

Monday morning, we made an offer for $5,300 less than the asking price, PLUS we asked them to pay $3,060 in closing costs. With it being a HUD home and our agent knowing the process they typically follow, we fully expected to receive a counter offer from them on Tuesday morning, which would then allow us to make another offer and finalize the deal on Wednesday. Much to our surprise, the message Tuesday morning was that they had ACCEPTED our first offer! Such a shock to all of us...the house values for about $25,000 more than we're paying for it. It was so affirming from the Lord to have them accept the offer in such an unprecedented way, so that was an added blessing.

Now all we have to do is sign some papers and the ball really starts rolling. Our agent is going to California to get married and honeymoon next Friday, so we'll have to do the inspection early next week, if not the end of this week. It's all happening so fast! We expect to close in the next 30-45 days, which means we'll have about a month to get the house painted and move things in slowly so that it's not super stressful on the actual moving day.

God is so good. I can't stop saying that enough. A wise woman told me recently that in their house-buying process, God had to really break her of craving the house as a possession and then bring her to a point of just being grateful for His provision in HIS timing. I pray that that is true of my own heart so that HE alone will receive every bit of the glory.

The Latest...

I feel like there's not much going on around here, and yet I still seem to be so busy. A few updates on life...

We still haven't found a house. We're looking, but because we're in a place of not having to move, we're more motivated to wait until we find exactly what we want. I'm realizing that dream may not exist, but I'd at least like to find something that we could stand to live in for 10 years if we needed to. We have about another month before we need to decide one way or the other, so we keep plodding along.

Now that summer is here and we're home more in the evenings, I'm becoming more domestic. Planning meals for the whole week and cooking multi-dish dinners has been fun. It's so much easier to eat healthier when you're cooking your own meals and not eating dinner on the go. I enjoy how much Ryan loves it, too. :-)

Speaking of eating healthier, after a week of vacationing/eating out, I got home to find I had gained more weight than I care to admit. It turns out the scale was actually off, but I had still gained. The number I saw on the incorrect weigh-in is what I call my "breaking point." When I see that number, I have no choice but to do something about it. Perfect timing for meal-planning...it's been three days and so far, so good. It's amazing how even drinking more water will give me more energy. Let's hope this sticks...and that the pounds don't.

My chiropractor visits are helping my back and neck a lot. I'm tired of having that routine of going every day after work because it shortens my evening, but I really do feel like it's worth it. Just a couple more weeks of it and then I will be done. They'll probably tell me that I need to keep coming back regularly for maintenance, but I can't afford the time or money for that. I'll be content to just be able to sleep pain-free at night.

I've fallen behind in my Bible reading. I'm not really sure what happened, but I've got to catch up. Today's reading is the whole Song of Solomon...and my dear husband told me this morning it reads much differently to him than it did last year. Something about marriage changing his view of the book... :-)

It's my last day of work this week, but I am exhausted at the idea of nine more hours to go today, including a staff meeting. I didn't like being here by myself for two weeks, but it's been overwhelming to have everyone back this week. I am learning to cherish my hour and a half each day in the mornings before the rest of the staff arrives!

Speaking of which, time to get back to work...