Moving!

As some of you may know, Chris and I have bought a house!  This really makes me feel like a grown up (and has me freaking out on the inside) but we are really excited about what God is doing. This has been and will be a big change for us, and a few weeks ago I needed to process some of what I was feeling and wrote the following.  I thought I would share it to give you all a glimpse of what God has been doing in our lives regarding this house...

Sometime early last year the Lord laid it on my heart that he was going to deliver a house to us.  This brought about great excitement and I began eagerly visiting and spying on every available house in our surrounding neighborhoods. We looked at houses, put an offer in, got rejected, and became disappointed.  I came to a point of saying, “OK, Lord if this is you then you will need to do this.”  At one point I was praying about this whole house business when I received a few words from the Lord.  One of them was “green” and the other was “next year.”  I found these curious but had come to a point where I was no longer interested in trying to figure out what God was doing, so I said OK and moved on.  

We continued to look at the house list emails we received regularly but nothing ever seemed to stand out or strike us much.  Then one day a 3 bedroom 2 bath house appeared on the market.  It’s exterior color?  Solid green.  It was in our price range (and on a street we had liked), so we decided to look.  It was not exactly what we anticipated, but it was small and spacious.  It was August and we decided to place an offer, even though the timing to move during the school year would be less than ideal, and left it at that.  Weeks and months passed.  We got word that there was another offer ahead of ours and that it was not looking good.  Chris was trying to prepare me to not be disappointed, but I flatly told him that I thought we would get it because of what the Lord had told me.  Chris just shrugged his shoulders.  A few more weeks passed when Chris received a call from our realtor.  The first offer was not responding, and if they didn’t by 5:00 that day, our offer would be sent in.  Chris laughed over the phone, knowing how I would respond to this news, “I told you so…”  Being that this is a short sale, weeks continued to pass with every now and then more paperwork demanded of us.  Thanksgiving came, then Christmas.  It is now just after the new year, 2012, and I imagine that very soon we will be approved for the solid green house on Pearl St., just in God’s perfect timing.  

The thought of moving from our beloved Kay Street apartments has given me so many mixed emotions.  As corny as this sounds, I feel a little bit like Frodo being asked to leave the Shire.  Though far from the Shire, this apartment complex has been our safety and refuge for the past two years.  We have developed beautiful relationships with a wonderful community that I do not want to leave.  When I think of how far these relationships have grown-- from unknowing glances to hugs, from silence to laughter, from mistrust to trust, I am beyond grateful at how much I have learned and been loved living here.  I think about our beloved Vlad and Flor, a couple who have truly become our brother and sister, whom we have been able to share apartments, vacuums, food, and dishes with, whom we have laughed and talked to throughout many evenings, whom we have been challenged and loved by, and I am so sad to leave the precious closeness that this little complex has offered.  And yet I trust my Jesus that He is calling me out, calling me to a new territory.  A new street where there will be unknowing glances, silence, and mistrust until the peace and presence of Jesus breaks through.  Here in Compton we know that a house is more than a house- it is ministry, community, family, koinonia.  It is our mission; and we trust that God goes before us as He guides us to this new place.