Wow,
last time I posted...it was April... I didn't even know that we had a new baby
on the way! Yes, if this is news to you, in just 8 weeks, a precious baby girl
will be in our arms! Can't wait for the New Year!
But,
that isn't what I sat down to write about. I'm not here to discuss Theology, or
even contemplate Scripture. Today I'm going to just be gut-level honest about
the last few months of life. If you follow me on Facebook, you know that it's
been rough.
In all
honesty, I'm not even sure where to start. So, as this Blog is so aptly named
"Redeemed Ramblings" ... I'm going to just ramble.
It's no
secret that my husband and I live on a low income since this recession started.
After losing both our home and employment all at the same moment (literally, we
lived where we worked) in January 2009, we then endured a full year and a half of
living off of unemployment checks. Thankfully in late summer of 2010 Eric got a
part-time job.
It
seemed that everything in our lives was stuck in "temporary" mode.
The rental house we moved into was "temporary" until we could get our
life a little more stable. When Eric was hired to work part-time, we considered
it a "temporary" step before moving on to something more permanent. In
the time following, we shared our vows and became husband and wife, and
welcomed our first son into the world. And as I've stated above; we're about to
meet our daughter for the very first time!
It is
now mid-November, 2012. And... we're still sitting in the same spot... that
"temporary" mode appears to be far more permanent than we would have
ever dreamed. We're still in the same rental home, and Eric is still working the same part-time job. The problem with that... we are sitting on a sinking ship. We
have watched every penny of our savings used up to survive. More than once in
the last few years we have faced the reality that we were down to literally our
very last penny, and at one point... we were so overdrawn thanks to a serious
mistake with our checking accounts and credit cards, we were so upside down we
didn't know how we'd climb out. But God pulled through for us, and every time
we have ended up with our backs against a wall, somehow a miracle has come
about to pull us through.
But what
do you do, when it seems that God is silent?
In
October, my husband and I were met with an opportunity that greatly excited us.
Without explaining all the details, we finally had some money set aside in the
bank, enough to make a small down payment on a property if we could possibly
find one we could afford. If I back up a step, I should share with you that last
winter/early spring, we began looking for an opprotunity to purchase a home of
our own. We started hunting through all the realty listings we could find, and
even viewed a few properties that caught our interest. We were primarily just
"window" shopping, but we had a remote hope that somehow God could
work a miracle for us and maybe we'd find something. We did, we fell in love
with an old farm that needed a lot of work. We began the process of financing
and in March we got the blow to our gut that showed us the true reality of
where we were at financially simply would not allow us to get a home loan. It
was a hard reality to swallow. Ok, now back to October. As I said, we finally
had a bit of money in the bank to help with a purchase of a home should we find
one. I had never really given up looking at real estate listings, it sort of
grew on me as a part-time hobby when I had time sitting at my computer to just
browse what was on the market. If nothing else, it kept me abreast of what was
selling and what wasn't, and I had a good idea of what kind of prices homes
were really going for. In September, we found a bank-owned property that we
really liked. But... the home was completely gutted. It didn't even have a
bathroom. It was a beautiful home, more than one storey, and on 5 acres of
land. Again we started the process of learning what we could make work through
a bank if they would finance us. Much to our surprise, we now qualified for a
much better loan than we had earlier in the year. Quite prayerfully, we laid
everything at God's feet, and had an offer ready to place on the property. We
contacted the realtor to make the offer, only to learn the property had been
sold the day before. We were quite disappointed, but continued trusting that
God would provide a way for something to work for us.
And then
one evening, I came across a brand new listing, a bank-owned foreclosure home
sitting on just under 5 acres of land. It had a 3 storey house and a small
barn, pastures set up for livestock, and the asking price was only $75,000. We
contacted the realtor, and went and took a look. The moment we drove into the
driveway, we were in love. And when we walked through the house, we were
convinced this was the home for us. Every step we took as we viewed the
property we fell more and more in love with what we were seeing. To say we were
excited is an understatement. Our hopes were soaring higher than the clouds.
Granted, this home needed a TON of work, but...that's what we've hoped for. A
fixer-home that we can make our own. Something that we can add our personal
touch to and make it truly ours.
The
insanity of trying to make purchasing this property work had just begun. We had
no idea what we were up against. Turned out, not only was the property bank
owned, but you couldn't go through conventional channels to purchase the
property. The owning bank (which we later learned is a company out of somewhere
in India??!!)
had listed the property through an auction website, although they weren't
actually auctioning the property, they were looking for a "best
offer" sale. Then we also learned... this property was built with NO
building permits. Uh-oh. That's a big big problem. It means banks don't want to
loan on the property, and it also meant because we (and others) were
communicating with the county assessor's office, this property was now mega on
the radar with the county inspectors. It suddenly became a property that we couldn't
just buy and move in to. We prayed, we prayed like crazy. We asked God to show
us what to do. Over and over and over again, we felt it confirmed that we were
to move forward with purchasing the property, to allow God to open what doors
needed to be opened, and close what doors needed to be closed. So, we made an
offer. We based our offer on the fact that such a huge amount of work would be
needed to bring the home up to code (if it could even be done). That offer was
for $45,000. Our offer was rejected, because the loan we had secured was a
"rehab" loan, and not a standard, conventional loan. Other offers
were on the table from other buyers, and buyer after buyer fell through. We
worked with our lending bank, and secured another form of loan, also a rehab
loan, but apparently slightly more acceptable? (who knows the weirdness of
banks/realty companies...) We had somewhat come to the conclusion that the door
had simply been closed by the Lord and that our hopes of buying the property
were gone. It looked like a sale was finally going through. And then one
evening, we got a text message from the realtor telling us that the property
was again available, and that we should submit another offer if we were still
interested. So again, we prayerfully put it before the Lord and felt that the
door was open, so we made another offer. This time, our offer was only $35,000
(which by the way, was the new asking price for the property... its purchase
price kept steadily dropping as buyer after buyer fell through) and, on October
7th, we were informed that our offer was accepted. We were literally dancing
around our house our excitement was so elated! We had made an offer $10,000 less than our
previous offer, we were confident this was God's way of blessing us with a home
even cheaper than we had originally planned. The very next day, we were in the
realtor's office signing all the necessary contracts needed for purchasing the
property. And just like that, we had our earnest money put down on the
property, and in just a few weeks the deal would close and we would be home
owners. To say our current home became a bustle of activity as we began wildly making
plans to get all our "ducks-in-a-row" to be ready to make the
transition happen...would be a gross understatement. Financially it would be a
very very tight transition as we would have to attempt floating a new mortgage
payment, and rent until we could move to our new property. It was dozens upon
dozens of phone calls to engineers and contractors and septic/plumbing, and and
and... all to help us figure out the steps needed to bring the home up to code.
It was sitting and crunching numbers like mad making sure we could really make
this work without putting ourselves in jeopardy of going upside down. I even
had pulled boxes into the house to begin packing and sorting the completely unnecessary
things we had stored upstairs. All this was the day after we signed the
contracts.
...And
then...
Just 24
hours after we signed the contracts, our realtor contacted us. The bank owning
the property we were purchasing contacted him and said they had looked over our
contract and were rejecting our offer because they wanted a cash-only deal.
Boom. Just
like that. Deal over.
Our earnest money was returned. The contract was broken.
We were no longer purchasing the
house/property we had fallen in love with. It was a blow that left us laying
awake for hours crying our eyes out. It still makes the tears sting my eyes to
think of my husband holding me as we both cried.
The blow
got even worse. As I checked the status of the property the very day after our
deal was rejected, the listing website had re-listed the property for sale, and
stated in bold print "Conventional Financing Considered".
WAIT.
WHAT???!!!
After
contacting our realtor about this, he wasn't sure what was going on, but when
he contacted the bank that owns the property, they informed him that they had
made some changes and a new employee was handling the property, and that yes,
they would consider allowing the property to be purchased with a conventional
loan. But... they had just accepted an offer for $36,500. We could make a
back-up offer that would be considered if the sale were to fall through again.
It
hasn't fallen through. And this week, the property will reach closing.
I'm not
going to lie. Eric and I have literally been devestated by this. We have never
so fully placed our faith in God, so fully laid everything before Him. I'm not
saying God made a mistake, so please don't get me wrong. It's just... why?
Why? If
none of it was to be, why did we get to the point where it looked like
everything was falling into place, that all the doors were open?
That
wasn't all that the month of October had to deal to us. The very same week that
our purchase fell through, one of our very best friends passed away. And on
October 31st, we heard from the bank that was approving us for a home loan.
Apparently... the "rules" have changed, and we no longer qualify for
a loan. So... even if the property we fell so in love with comes available
again; unless we can secure financing from another lending company, (which yes, we are attempting to do, but it doesnt' look promising) we can't
even move forward with a purchase. That same day, we got hit with the news that
my husband can't get health insurance through the state like we had hoped, and
we don't qualify for cash help...which we desperately hoped would help us pay
for heating our home this winter.
Depressed?
Yep. Pretty much.
It has seemed that every little thing we have tried to help
get our feet underneath us has fallen through. And that money we have set away
in the bank? Well... I won't put all the numbers out here for the public to
read... but our rent is killing us. We are spending too much each month living
here and you don't even want to know what it takes to heat this house in the
winter. So... each month, that money we have set aside keeps getting smaller,
and smaller. We know what is coming. Math doesn't lie. By spring, we'll have
nothing left in the bank.
So what
do you do, when God is silent?
Ok, we
can argue that God has something good in all this for us. And I'm sure He does.
But I'm sure you too have gone through those times in life when it seems that
God isn't answering. You feel as though He is far, far away.
That's
where we are right now. God is silent right now, and we are constantly
listening, constantly seeking, constantly laying everything at His feet, hoping
that something will change. But we are discouraged. Very, very discouraged. We
will soon have a new baby in our home. We have a toddler who needs clothing.
And while yes, we're still making ends meet right now; it's so hard to look at
the future and wonder how we'll make it all work.
We still
shed tears... sometimes almost daily. We feel trapped, stuck, still desiring
that "permanent" place that we have been looking for.
God is
silent. For now. It just means we're listening... harder than ever before.
