We're back in Maybe-Land... Again.

I'm doing something brave right now... Brave to me, anyways.


I'm going to say that I think God may have just provided a house for us to live in. A wonderful house...

This is how the afternoon went: I picked Matt up and we went to look at the house. The owner, Bethany, greeted us at the door. It turns out that she and her husband, Eli, are missionaries in Africa with their 3 boys. That's why they're moving - to go back to Africa for another three years. That right there was awesome to me. Here I was worried about what kind of people would own the house, and they turn out to be Christians AND missionaries! (If you know my love for missions then you get why this is so extremely cool to me!) We chatted as we looked through the house, but it was getting harder and harder for me to focus on the house itself. All I kept thinking was "how cool would it be to support this missionary family by taking good care of their home for them while they're away..." I was starting to feel like I'd be doing a long-term house sitting more than renting a place! To them it's not just an investment property or something - this is the home they will come back to when they return from Africa.

The only thing we were a little concerned about was that they said "no pets please" and we have Béla. (And Boogie, but in most cases that doesn't seem to apply to things that live in a tank.) I believe that if they say no because of Béla, then it wasn't meant to be, and if it is meant to be, they will allow her.

So now, back to my "brave" declaration. 

If we get it, of course I will continue saying "God is good! Look what He's done!" and if we don't get it I will say "It's not what God has for us right now." I don't think either of these assessments are wrong, but why is it so scary to talk about what God is doing in present tense? 

I guess because hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to look back once something has already happened and say that God did it. It's not so easy to sit there and be like "I believe this is what God is going to do" before it's even happened. If I say that and it doesn't come to pass, do I look like a fool? Should I just keep my mouth shut until I see where things go? Or should I be open to say I believe God is about to do something great? 


I don't know. 


I guess I've never faced this before on such a big scale. Or maybe I have, but I'm just now really thinking about it. What do you think?

Don't worry.

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done." Phil 4:6 (NLT)


I needed to read this verse this morning.


As I said in my last post, we've had two houses we've looked at buying fall through. The second cost us around $600 for inspections and everything. We are still sure that God is telling us now is not the time to purchase a house. But over the last week, we've had a strong feeling like we need to be looking for another home, even if it's not one that we own ourselves. I've been looking at other apartments/condos for rent, and the problem I keep running into is this: It seems that the ones we can afford won't fit our stuff, and the ones that will fit our stuff are more than we can afford. It's been frustrating.


To top it off, yesterday I discovered black mold growing out of the air vent in Asher's room. We removed the vent cover, which was absolutely covered in mold, especially on the back side of the vent. When we looked inside the ducts with a flashlight we could see the mold all on the inside of the air ducts... Definitely not healthy, and yes, I did freak out a little. We called the landlord and we're working to get it taken care of asap, but for the meantime the heat/air is shut off, and Asher is sleeping in his play pen in our room. It may be in all of the vents, but it's definitely worse in his, so hopefully he'll be "safer" in our bedroom.


As you can imagine, this also added to the frustration of not finding a new place to live. I've actually really enjoyed living here for the last (almost) three years, and we don't live in a dump by any means, but it is an older building and has it's issues here and there. Mold, however, is not one that I'm willing to just live with. 


Needless to say, my search for a new home was in full swing yesterday, and I will admit I was getting pretty ratcheted up over things. I couldn't find a suitable apartment or condo, and I didn't want to deal with renting a house because of not knowing what kind of landlords we may get, what condition house we could find within our budget, etc. But after not finding an apartment that would work, I started looking. 


Apparently Matt was looking too, because he texted me and told me to look at a house for rent that had caught my eye earlier in the day. I took it as a good sign that we were both interested in the same house on our own, so I called the management company and said we wanted to take a look. The lady called me back around 5:30 yesterday, and we're supposed to go look at it tomorrow afternoon. At this point, it's worth at least looking into.


I'm trying not to worry about this apartment. God knows that we don't have any closets or storage space here, that there's mold in our air vents, etc etc etc. And I'm trying not to worry about whether we'll "get" that house we're going to look at tomorrow. I'm hopeful that this may be the place God has for us to move to, but I'll be honest, I'm also trying not to get my hopes up too much after being let down in that area so many times lately. 


Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything.


I shouldn't worry -  I can sit and list one amazing thing after another that God's done for us, especially over the last year, but yesterday I still gave in to anxiety, and I was a nervous wreck. I don't want to continue that way. He knows what we need before we even knew we needed it, and I can't sit here and ignore everything He's given us already. 


Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.


So, (raising my glass of orange juice) here's to a productive Thursday - full of thanks and worry-free.  :)