Great Things He Hath Done!

It's amazing to look back to the day that my parent's went to prison, and see all that God has done since then. It has been a whirlwind of decisions and activity. It's as if that phone call at 8:00 a.m. on April 30th was the signal for God to begin working. His timing is not ours, and whereas in the past it seemed that He was never going to get started, we now find ourselves wondering if/when things are going to slow down just a little bit. We are exhausted! But all we have to do is remember all the little things (that amount to really big things!) that He has done for us, and we get so excited that we beg Him not to stop!

We sold our house today! We put it on the market late last Thursday night, and by Sunday our realtor/friend, Ja'net, had two serious inquiries. On Monday, both people were looking into financing, each knowing there was another interested party.

One of the couples has five grown children who live in this area, so they have thirteen ~ yes, you read that right...THIRTEEN ~ grandchildren close by. They loved the play area, the child-friendliness of the house, and the size of the house...in that order. :) Almost every day their realtor was calling Ja'net asking if there was anyone else that she thought was close to making an offer because theirs was taking some time to come together.

They own several duplexes around town, and if they were to sell one of them, they would be able to make a cash offer. BUT, they didn't want the contingency, knowing that would look better to us if two offers were made simultaneously. So they did some fancy footwork on their financing and got approved for a bridge loan which unfortunately came with an outrageous interest rate. They like the house so much though, that they were willing to go for it in hopes that they will be able to sell one of the properties before we close.

I'm praying that works out for them!

On Thursday they typed up an offer and gave it to Ja'net at 10:00 that night. We didn't know about it until 9:30 Friday morning and we had until noon to make our decision.

As we were going over everything with Ja'net, her smile just kept getting bigger and bigger. Josh called our realtor in Eau Claire, crunched the numbers again, and told Ja'net what our absolute bottom line was. Our goal was to make a 20% down payment, and only have a 15 year loan.

Josh asked her what her honest opinion was, and with a smile, she pulled out the counter-offer she had typed up before she left the office that morning...NOT KNOWING any of the details Josh had in mind. It was EXACTLY what Josh had said we wanted to do. All we had to do was sign!

As we began going through the paperwork, our realtor in Eau Claire called me, and said, "Sherri, you won't believe this. I can't believe this, but they just got another offer on the house out here. You have 48 hours to get paperwork to me, proving you have a solid offer on your house there, or you lose this one."

That house has been on the market since November with no bites. Zero. What are the chances that less than one week after we make our offer, another one comes in? And while we're in the midst of signing paperwork for an offer on our house that had been on the market one measly week no less. This kind of thing just doesn't happen. Especially with the economy the way it is. The real estate market is very slow. Most of the realtors I know, besides Ja'net, can't believe how quiet things are.

There are no coincidences with God. Every little thing He allows into our lives is for a purpose and according to God's plan. Yes, even the seemingly bad things.

I broke the news to Josh and Ja'net, and we all just kind of looked at each other, took deeps breaths, and got busy signing. My first response was, if God doesn't want us to have that house, then we don't want it. It's all in His Hands.

We counter-offered $5,000 less than our asking price meeting all their other stipulations which included my curtains and humongous refrigerator. :(

They had until 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning to decide.

Just a few hours later, Ja'net called me and said, "Sherri, I just got the signed counter-offer. They took it!"

You want to know what I think? I think God did this exactly the way He did to show off just a little bit. THAT'S how God works. He does nothing half way. If He's gonna do something great, He's gonna do it in a big way! Tonight when we prayed together as a family, Josh thanked God for His care for us, for His attention to the details, for caring about us enough to so clearly be the reason for all the pieces of this whole process just falling into place. We are not special. We do not deserve this. But we give Him the glory; He is SO WORTHY of all our praise!