How the Rest of the Story Went...

I keep promising that I will tell the story.

The rest of the story of how we got 

to this point of building our house...

And why I am so amazed and teary

that we are actually building a house.

Before I go there, 

you need to go here to the original post I wrote

called, "Be Careful What You Pray For, part 2..." 

 so you can be caught up with the way this story goes.  

I left you here on my blog 

with this nice family that came to us, 

(with our house not even on the market!!) 

asking us to buy our house.  

They pursued us and pursued us.  

For months...

Asked us if we were SURE we wanted to sell.

The last time I wrote about this was in this post, 

called, "The Update..."

We got our hopes up, even though we were careful not to.

We had to wait on some issues here,

while they waited on some issues there.

It was perfect.  We both needed a little time.

Perfect timing.

In April, we called them to set the deal up officially.

It was time.  It was all working out!!

Amazing!

But... then...

when we called them, they apologetically told us 

that they bought a house in Fairhaven. 

They were so sorry...

Ouch.

Having had them come to us to buy our house,

we were moving on in our minds to whatever was next.

We thought we'd rent somewhere for a year 

and decide what to do during that time.

Should we build (if we can sell our properties...),

or sell it all and do something completely different?

But now, here we were, back to square one.

Since we had moved on in our minds already,

we decided to see what would happen if we tried

to sell our house by owner.

And boy were we in for a ride...

About two weeks after we listed it,

a wonderful family that we knew from a church we attended,

wrote me and said they really wanted to buy our house.

This family was as much, no even more,

who I imagined living in our house after us...

We agreed on a price.

I honestly can't remember all of the details between

May (when this happened) and now.

All I know, is that the Barons desired to buy our house.

Then we sold both of our lots,

and having sold our house possibly as well,

we figured out that we could ACTUALLY build

a house-a dream we have thought about for years!!!

So...we asked Meshak -a guy who bought one of our lots

so he could build for a client- if he would be willing to,

and have time to build a house for us.

His response was that not only could he,

but that he would love to!!!

(I will tell you the story of Meshak soon...

it deserves its own post!!)

We started working on house plans with Meshak.

We took what he gave us to a mutual friend, Kevin,

who drew up a design for us!

We were really doing this!

Sometime in here, it ended up 

that the Barons ran into a glitch.

They couldn't buy our house.

They tried to take their house off the market.

We were discouraged.

We decided that we didn't know what we were thinking.

We also discovered a glitch.

We shouldn't be building a house.

We weren't doing it.

Done.

No deal.

No house.

It was finished.

I spent a weekend curled up in a ball 

on my couch crying out to God.

Why would we get this far, 

only to have the door slam shut?

We had just been through three very dark years,

where we were sued, Mark's life was threatened,

relationships around us were super sad.

Why this now?

I was so sad, and discouraged, and done.

Within a week of this,

the Barons got an offer on their house!

Then they got another full price offer!!

Then the first offer, who apparently REALLY wanted 

their house, made an offer $15,000 over the asking price!?!

And in amazing ways that just can't be told in blog format,

God worked it out.

In ways more amazing than we could have EVER imagined!!

Not only can they buy our house,

the timing of it all means that we get to live

in our old house while we build our new house.

(Which is so fun to be able to watch 

the process daily as our house goes up...)

And while they are "homeless," 

they get to live in an "estate" just south of Bellingham,

travel to Palm Desert and live there for a while.

Homeschooling their kids for the first time,

field trip after amazing field trip...

this year will be hard to beat!!

So here we are.

Almost two months into building our house.

Almost two months away from moving in.

One of the many things we have learned in this

is that God gives and He takes away.

He is in control, and His plan is always best.

And sometimes when He takes away,

He gives back.

In ways that are far better than

you can EVER imagine!!!