your worth in the Lord and not in the comments of others . She made an off-hand remark about struggling to sell our home and feeling self conscious about the 1980s kitchen . A week or so later , we received an email from one of the women in attendance at that MOPS group , “ I know your house , my husband and I went through it last winter , but our home is not listed yet . We want your house - don ’ t worry about your kitchen at all .” Wow - a direct buyer supplied by the Lord ! We soon connected with them and encouraged them to list their house and told our realtor that “ God brought us a buyer - we can keep it on the market , but we won ’ t sell to anyone else .” We then hurried out to find a house , since we assumed the Lord would close this deal in no time .
We found a lovely home that seemed perfect . We wrote an offer contingent upon our sale and they accepted . All was well , except for our buyers couldn ’ t sell their house now , which meant we could not sell ours to them , which meant that , sure enough , we lost that house to buyers who could fully close a deal . How could three years of praying lead to God still moving so slowly ? Why would he clearly give us a buyer only to have them now have difficulty selling ? A few months later , we thought we knew why - a much better house went for sale directly across the street from that previous house ! We cast lots and the lot fell to writing an offer ; so we did . We were sure that the Lord was going to be “ giving us a testimony of upgrade right out our front window ,” They accepted our offer and our buyers had an offer on their home as well ! All these deals were lining up . Then , in a matter of less than a day and a half , our sellers changed their minds , went with another offer and sold to those buyers . We felt betrayed and also dismayed that God would have asked us to write that offer . Does casting lots not work ? Do we even know if we hear from the Lord ? Then our buyers also lost their sale and had to lower their price several times over the next summer months . They even had to do an entire roof remodel . The entire real estate summer of 2016 was passing us by .
HOUSE ANSWERS BEGIN AGAIN Daily prayers continued , but if we are honest , our children started to wonder aloud if the Lord was actually ever going to sell our house and move us . It had been for sale now , on and off again , for 18 + months , and we had been praying for almost three years . Then , our buyers got an offer ! We began again to look at houses and had to expand our search somewhat since the neighborhoods we had known about had no homes for sale . We spent another day going through houses and found an amazing house - but it was near the top of our budget and seemed almost too good to be true for us . We were still tender from the uncertain results of the casting of lots from May , so we prayed and casted lots with the random number generator and asked the Lord for a passage about our story .
The lot fell to Ezra 5-6 ! Those were the verses for the prayer garden dedication and they speak about finishing the building you have begun . We were awestruck . I was ready to write the offer right then . Andrea was still smarting from the last go round in May , so while she was alone with Josiah and Elleanna , she prayed and asked that if Thomas was allowed to touch , then could she be given a little more reassurance ? So , she started ripping paper and placing it in a bag .
She wrote five “ do not buys ” and two more “ pray and waits ” and one “ buy the house ” and one more “ buy the house with the royal treasury ( Ezra 6 ).” Seven nos and only two versions of a yes . She drew , “ Buy the house with the royal treasury ” from the bag ! We were ready with our offer !
After our house passed inspection for sale , but before we moved out , our roof showed a small leak . We needed to fix it for our buyers , but we worried about cost . We got the estimate and scheduled the repair . On the day of the repair , in September , our tax return from Michigan was finally deposited ( after the identity theft fiasco ) nine months late and for almost the exact amount of the roof repair ! What was intended as evil , the Lord used for good !
Since the Lord told us to purchase and use the royal treasury ( a savings account we had ), we felt led to double our Grace Beyond pledge , as well . We had been paying on it for these past three years and this felt like an appropriate gift back to the Lord . We sold our house on October 21 , 2016 and had the title company hold our proceeds since our purchase was a mere one week later . We had to draw up our closing paperwork prior to that date
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