We live in this awesome rental right now...it perfectly exceeds our needs. However, we deeply desire to own a home. One of our own. To update and redo and dream and create with. And that is one of our hopes in the present or not to far off future- to buy a home. As we are settling in our rental we are casually looking at homes as they come on the market.
Last week our realtor sent us an email with a house that just came on the market. It was ADORABLE. We scheduled a showing as quickly as we could. We walked through it and
fell. in. love. I mean seriously in love. It was completely our style and the type of home we dreamed about owning. We looked beyond the never-updated-kitchen and the completely gutted upstairs and the no garage and the messy electrical wiring and how all the windows and siding would need torn down and replaced and the tiny one bathroom and and and AND we dreamed and envisioned and created this cozy little home.
I jumped on pinterest and seth jumped on autocad and together we tore down walls and added walls and "built" a home. It had charm. It had character. It had potential. It was "our style" to a perfect T. AND we could afford it. And we could afford to update it. We absolutely had fallen in love with it. I kept trying not to but eventually along the way I did.
So like any hopeful-first-time-homebuyer who is in love with a home would do- we put in an offer. Admittingly, it was low, but it was definitely fair. So for three days we countered back and forth with the sellers. Three very long days. Wednesday night we put our final offer in along with a personal letter explaining how much we loved this home. And the next morning when we excitedly hoped to hear good news we found out someone else had put in an offer THAT morning. The morning our final offer was supposed to be accepted. My heart sank because I knew we couldn't really compete in a bidding war. I was sad. I was mad at these unknown people for making an offer on our house- how dare they?! I was mad at the sellers for even entertaining the idea of another offer after all we had been through together in the past 3 days. Righteous indignation, right? (no. not at all actually).
The plan was both buyers were supposed to come to the table with their very best offer by 2:00 pm yesterday afternoon. So we talked and offered our best. We brought all we could, minding the extensive updating, to the table. We were really hopeful. I mean, hello- we had been working with these sellers for 3 days and had written them a sweet, heart-felt little letter about why they should pick us. I kept trying to tell myself to prepare for the worst but my stinkin heart made that really difficult.
Seth and I kept texting that afternoon..."have you heard anything yet?!" "nope. not yet". "any news yet?!" "no, haven't heard anything yet :(". I had a feeling he would find out on his commute home from work. I envisioned him running through the front door and announcing we were first time home buyers and laughing, hugging, yada yada yada. Okay slightly dramatic...but you get it. Instead he walked in, shoulders low and sad eyes. Right away I could tell something wasn't right but I didn't want to ask. I didn't want to face it. But like it or not, I can't escape reality. A recent quote I read hit me "avoiding reality never changes reality".
He showed me the text from our realtor that said "I'm sorry, but the sellers decided to accept the other offer". I had planned not to cry if this happened. I had planned to be okay with it. We had prayed specifically that God would not give us this house if it wasn't right. We had prayed and prayed over it. But I forgot not to cry and the tears flowed. I forgot to be okay with not getting it and proclaimed "why is everything always so hard?! why does God always make our journeys so difficult". (in counseling we have been taught *relentlessly* not to use words like always/never/everything/etc because they tend to over-dramatize and under rationalize the reality). But there was no rationalizing going on in that moment. It was a pure broken and shattered heart.
I cried, we hugged. We stood, sad. Sad eyes and sad hearts. We knew it would be okay. We knew we were blessed beyond measure. We knew God would provide. But we needed a moment of just being where we were before moving on.
So what better way to move on than to tear apart the house. haha, oh dear. I felt a wave wash over me and told seth, "Okay, now let's tell eachother everything we hated about the house and why it would have been a TERRIBLE idea for us to buy it"...so for the next 15 minutes we talked through why this would have been a "terrible" purchase and why we were so much better off without it. And then at the end, I cried again because I still loved it.
So after hashing through it last night and riding the emotions and telling ourselves the typical "there's a better one out there" and "we didn't get this for a reason", etc., we went to bed still super sad but resolved to believe and trust in God who knows much much better than we do.
So I expected to wake up this morning and feel peaceful and okay about it all. Not so. I woke up thinking about owning this house and then the reality hit me, oh yeah...we didn't get it. And then came the great sadness again. I wrestled this morning with my emotions and begged God just to take away the feeling of sadness because it felt so heavy and painful and I didn't want to feel it anymore. But it didn't just "go away". And so we had to work on it. Me and God. And as I listed off all the things I am really thankful for the pain started to ease. I realized that by praising Him simply for who He is and for Jesus that i'm so blessed. And then beginning to list off other things like the family I have and the home we have and and and, I felt the pain ease and my vision became more clear. No, i'm not fluffing it up- it still hurts and i'm still really sad about it. I am still struggling with it. But I also realize how compared to so so so many other painful situations that my family and friends are dealing with- this isn't so bad. really no so much.
It's all about perspective. I mean really, it's an incredible thing that we can even put in an offer on a home and have the ability to own a home. Seth reminded me of that in his prayer the other day, "God we thank you that we can even own a house here, we know that in some countries they can't even own property...we are blessed to even have this opportunity"....wow. Yes, it's all about perspective.
Song of the day:
God be Praised by Gateway Worship
happy friday, y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment