Answered Prayers

From the beginning of our marriage, and especially once we had kids, Josh and I always talked about moving to the country. We knew that for this to happen we would either have to build a house--or get really lucky and one would come up for sell. Either way, we figured it would be a long time before this happened. 

In the fall of 2015, I read a book called "The Circle Maker" where is talked about being intentional about your prayers and "circling" them. The man talked about literally walking a path in Washington DC where he felt like God wanted them to build a church and so he walked around it praying. Sure enough the building God had planned for them was in that circle. I decided to really get intentional about this prayer because I reallllyyyyy wanted to raise my kids in the country. If you have never lived out in the country, its hard to fathom, I know....but life is just different. I wrote down in my prayer journal on December 4, 2015 that in 3 years my prayer was for a house in the country. I remember thinking "Oh gosh, that is so soon....maybe I should put 5 years." But I calculated the girls ages in my head and thought, "noooo, I really would like it to be before then so I'm gonna stick to it". Several times, I also drove a path that I knew had some housing options praying the whole drive that somewhere within this area, God would provide a house. There was a farmer we thought MIGHT be moving to Lubbock at some point, the section where Josh grew up that we knew we had the option to build and we knew WAY down the road his grandparents house could possibly be an option. 

The more intently I prayed, the more Josh and I talked about it. And dreamed. And longed for it to be our reality. So we did what everyone does, we started looking online at plans and checking to see if just by chance I house came up for sell in the area we wanted. Financially, we just didn't see how we could make building a house work. There were things about the other options I just didn't feel completely on board with either. So we kept praying and kept dreaming.

One night, Josh shows me a house on Craigslist that was gutted and CHEAP. Like $10,000 and we jokingly talked about the possibility of moving a "fixer upper" out and there and worked on it while we still lived in town. Or even better--get one part livable and move in and and save a ton of money! This particular house was pretty small and needed a lot of work and I just laughed and said "I like this idea but all I can think of is we would get moved out there and I would get pregnant and it would be disastrous trying to redo a house and move while pregnant, so not this one". Josh was Mr. Craigslist and I remember seeing another cute one with hardwood floors and new siding but no price. We just assumed that it would be way out of our price range and just let it pass. He showed me a few more that would pop up but none of them really felt right. So we just kept talking and praying and dreaming. 

I don't faithfully do it, but every once in a while I will get on a Proverbs-a-day kick and it just so happened on February 24, 2016 was one of those days. I remember reading verses 3&4 and having a "Is this an answer God?" moment. "Are you trying to tell me something or am I just reading into verses what I WANT the answer to be?" 

The girls and I were headed to Dalhart for a quick trip and I remember calling Josh and telling him about it and asking him just to call the number and see how much the house was because if not we would always wonder. He agreed and called me back later with the price. I think we were both a little shocked and thought for the first time that this might actually be a possibility. On the way home a few days later (Feb 28th), Josh was getting off work from the fire station about the time we were getting back from Dalhart so on a whim I called him and said since we were both in town, why doesn't he just call and ask the guy if we can see the house even though it was super short notice. And he said yes :)

To be continued....