A week ago, I was on my way to work and got a call from Cody. He told me he had found us a house and had emailed it to me. He needed me to look at it and call him back ASAP. It was a great deal; it was a foreclosed home located by the country club, had 4 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, and was priced at $96,500. Now, if you are from the Senatobia area, you know that homes this size cost much more. So to find this nice of a home for such a low price was a deal we could not pass up considering everything that Cody and I have found in our price range is either too small, in a bad area, or needs a lot of updating. By the time I called Cody to let him know I liked the house, he had already contacted the realtor and was on his way to meet her to look at it. Good thing I liked the house!
He called me after touring the house and said that it was nice and would only need new paint in some of the rooms, new floor in the kitchen, and the carpet would need to be cleaned. He asked if I could meet the realtor during my lunch break and look at it myself. So at lunch, Cody took me to see the house. I REALLY liked it! It was just the right size and had some great features. The fact that little work needed to be done to update it was a perk, too.
That afternoon, the ball started rolling. Cody got us approved for a loan. We discussed how much we wanted to bid on the home ($105,000) and placed the bid that afternoon. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the process of buying a foreclosed home, you have to make a bid on it. Then the company who owns the house accepts a bid that they like; if they don't like any of the bids, they open up the bidding again.) The bidding closed on Sunday, so we had to wait until the bids were reviewed on Monday to find out if we had gotten the house. That weekend was the longest weekend ever! Cody kept getting on the website every few minutes to check the countdown on the bidding; I swear he was like a kid waiting on Christmas! I was excited, nervous, and anxious, too, but not to the extent he was. Besides, I had no reason to check on the house anyway; he kept me updated enough that I didn't have to look.
Well, Monday came. That morning Cody had seen where the posting had been removed, which meant someone's bid had been accepted. (Hopefully our's.) It was difficult to stay focused on anything that morning. Cody called our realtor to ask her to check the results...and...we didn't get the house.
I had given myself a pep talk that morning by quoting Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose," and praying and asking the Lord for His Will to be done. Both devotions I read were about God having our best interest in mind amidst pain, hardships, etc. I have to admit that it was rather hard to apply what I had read and find comfort from God's Word. I was torn between being satisfied in knowing that God has something better for us and being bitter and upset that we still did not have a house of our own. In the midst of my disappointment and questioning, God decided to show me why we did not need the house. A registered sex offender lives in the neighborhood where we would've been living, and his offense was child molestation. Cody found out this information the afternoon right after we made the bid. The house would've been where we started our family, and now that I know who lives in the neighborhood, I definitely would not have felt that my children were safe living there.
I know this has been a lengthy post, but I hope that my story will remind you of how awesome God is and how He works things out for the good of His children, even if we don't see it or understand it at first. God absolutely has the best in mind for His children. He knows how our stories end and sees the details of the bigger picture that were are not capable of seeing. This song says it perfectly:
If You say go, we will go
If You say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come
Your ways are higher than our ways
And the plans that You have laid
Are good and true
If You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You.
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