Our third mountain was selling our house in Tennessee. Strangely, I was never worried about this one, but it's what kept Toby up at night. Even if we did land a great part time job in Mobile, we wouldn't be able to support two mortgages without his engineering salary. Fully expecting to be scrimping by in Mobile and still needing to pay for Toby's tuition, the obvious choice (in our minds, at least) was to sell our house "by owner" and avoid the hefty 6% realtor commission. On a Wednesday I made cute little flyers and prepared to buy a sign and flyer box for the yard the next day.
Thursday morning my eyes flew open and for the first time since the detour began I was overwhelmed by stress. I don't know anything about selling a house!! What were we thinking? Sure, I had planned to scour the Internet for information and tips, but the paperwork and legal jargon alone scared me. Ignoring my instincts, I plowed ahead with the day's to-do list. My first stop of the day was a leadership meeting for a moms group I served on. We hadn't told many people about our detour at this point, but this morning I was set to announce we were leaving and to share the excitement with my friends. Teary out of the reality of leaving the relationships we'd built, I shared every detail we had to date. They were shocked, but excited and supportive. Just then, a realtor friend sitting across from me grabbed my hand and asked, "Have you listed your house yet?" I don't know how to tell you that I don't want to pay your fat commission... I mustered, "Not yet." Her eyes lit up and she said, "Let me list it for you. I will put it on MLS...and I won't charge you a commission." Silence. I just stared at her, my mind racing in a million different directions, I couldn't verbalize anything. I simply collapsed in tears. To think hours earlier that the details of selling our house were consuming me and that I hadn't mentioned anything about selling our house by owner, to anyone...Jesus definitely knows where we are and used this friend to speak peace over me and provide an incredible gift! My prayer for her is that God will return the blessing...
Our neighborhood is fairly small with only a few different floor plans. Most of the houses have the same hardwood flooring, the same counter tops and finishes. Within two weeks of putting our house on the market, 5 more flew up in competition. God had specifically given us the list price and it was significantly below the other houses available in our neighborhood. Seeing that the houses were so similar in size and layout, surely we would snag the first buyer! Days after listing our house we had a showing...another showing...and an offer! This is amazing! We waited anxiously for word from our realtor, but she was not nearly as excited as I expected her to be. The offer we received was low...very low. Now we're in quite a pickle. God had been very clear about our list price, but here was a buyer and so quickly. Given the sluggish market, this buyer had to come from God, didn't they? We negotiated back and forth, but in the end decided to hold tight to the list price we were given. It was incredibly difficult to watch this buyer walk away. What if that was our one buyer God sent us, and we were greedy and sent them away?
Over the next 5 months we would entertain only 10 more showings. A painful reality and a stark reminder that this mountain was completely out of our control. We had no choice but to wait on the Lord. In May, two months after we listed our house, I was driving in from errands and saw a "Pending" sign on a neighbor's house. Shock ran through my bones, quickly followed by anger. As I pulled into our garage, I clearly heard Jesus say, "Do you trust me?" He was so clear that I actually looked at the passenger seat in search of the voice. I had to surrender...again. My mantra through this season had become, "I will trust You" and this was simply another facet of trust.
Around that time we sat in church on a Sunday morning and celebrated as our leadership announced another family's calling to serve an orphanage in Jamaica. The husband humbly shared how God had confirmed their calling and the statement that stuck with me was, "God brought us a buyer for our house within two weeks of listing it." Something in my spirit cringed, but Jesus was ready with a reassuring response. Just as clearly as He spoke in my car, He said, "It's not going to be that way for you...it's going to be different." Hmm, my sarcasm snuck in, of course it will be different, we've already been waiting for two months!! I quickly regretted my bad attitude and knew that's not what He meant. But I was just more confused. What does "different" mean? It would be another two months before He defined it...
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