Simply Amazing

You know what amazes me the most about this world? That it's not as standoffish or closed-off as it seems at times. Y'all amaze me with your offers of encouragement, support and readiness to pray for someone across the web. I don't mean just for me either. Kelli, Heather, missionaries, tsunami/tornado/earthquake/hurricane survivors, Compassion... Y'all are not even picky about for whom you'll pray. Thank you for your sweet embraces. You all have made me smile quite a bit lately.

You know what else amazes me? The way that God continually shows his power.

Take Mr. Right's bout with melanoma. Only God could orchestrate such a situation that encouraged not only us, but our friends as well. We've been able to share that story, giving God all the glory for his protection.

Take when Mr. Right being let go from his job not even a month after we bought our house. God showed his hand of protection those few months that he was searching. Twice someone stepped up and anonymously paid our mortgage. We had more food to eat than we ever could eat. It seemed that we had more money in the bank than we did when Mr. Right was employed, all because of the outpouring of support and love from our friends and the church. When we would profuse our thanks to anyone, I can't tell you how many times we heard, "Stop right there. You don't know what a blessing it is to me to be able to do this for you. Thank you for letting me serve God through you." Wow. Talk about eye-opening. This lack of job stuff had more going on behind the scenes than we realized!

Take our house being on the market. When we put it on the market last year, we had this feeling that God was telling us to sell. Okay, Mr. Right had the feeling. I was pouting in the corner about selling my home. But God is good at using situations that deal with the physical world to make big changes in our hearts. Soon I came to see that selling the house wasn't about me and my wants at all. It's about trusting God to lead us and following whenever he calls. That lesson was totally worth the breaking of my selfish spirit and letting me see a bigger view.

Take the crummy agent (unbeknownst to us) who brought no clients nor advertisement. Our clean place saw a few visitors, but not many. When the basement had seepage after a huge rain (and we're on a hill, y'all!), we pulled it off the market thinking that maybe we misheard God's directions. Then we received enough money to fix the basement, buy a sump pump and replace the old carpet with a much better carpet. Due to some wonderful networking and finding a quality workman who made bids at a fraction of the cost of other workmen, we were able to save about 4K to throw into savings.

Next our insurance agent came out for something or other, and while there, he asked if we received any money for the hail that came through our area. After replying that we received a letter from his offers that basically said, "Don't even think about asking for money because we told you that roof had to be replaced when you bought it," he said that we must have read that letter wrong and that he would send an inspector our right away. By the end of the week, we had half the money to pay for the new roof. The other half was the from the money we saved from using the carpet guy. So we had a new basement and a new roof in no time, with little money out of our pocket.

This March we were still feeling the directive to put the house on the market. Many people around here said, "I don't know about this market... You might want to wait," or "You're selling it yourself? Are you crazy? You need someone who has the buyers to show your house. Well, good luck with that."

We always reply that if God wants it sold, he'll sell it no matter what the market looks like. Our God, he's the God of all things impossible. He likes to flex his muscles when he knows it seems like that there is not good end possible.

So, anyone want to guess what happened this weekend?

Let me give you a hint: we spent all day yesterday (after church, of course) looking at houses...