The Story of Our House {Part Two}

 

If you haven't read the first part of the story then you will need to get caught up first or this part will not make much sense.

PART TWO

Sold? We were so confused. We had been told this was our house. And every time we fasted and prayed we were repeatedly told by the spirit to push forward and to buy the house. So we prayed again. We fasted again. And we went to the temple. We still felt like we needed to push forward. So we continued to work on the financing and we still looked at houses online. We even drove to Utah a few times to look at some in person. We went into it very opened minded thinking maybe God had a different house for us. We liked a few but it never felt right.

Meanwhile were still trying to figure out what to do with the house once we bought it. We felt like we were suppose to stay and finish school in Las Vegas so that left us with the option of renting it out. But to who? Right as we were struggling with the idea of renting Shane's best friend from growing up called to say he would be in town for work and would love to stop by and visit. While he was at our apartment he mentioned that he, his wife, and their two little ones had out grown their tiny apartment and they really wished they could have a yard for their boys to play in everyday. They were living in Utah while he was also in college. In fact, they were living very close to the town we were looking for a house.

You would think that the light bulb would have appeared above my head and made a little "ding" sound immediately but it was later that day that the idea for them to rent from us came to me.

So we had renters, but no house, or financing. We also had one more thing.... the strong feeling to keep pushing forward.

One day months and months later when we had started to get very discouraged, my mom called. She was SO EXCITED. Up until this point she had helped us along because she was trying to be supportive but I could tell the banker and mom part of her were holding back. So her excitement took me off guard. She told me she had found my house. She had gone for a drive with our real estate agent to see a house. My mom said that when she came around the corner and saw the house she got chills and KNEW it was our house. She was talking really fast and wanting me to check my email. The real estate agent was going to email pictures he took of the house and she was antsy for me to see it. I had to hang up in order to check my email (remember we had dial up internet) but promised her I would call her as soon as I saw them.

Shane was on his way home. It took so long to get online. And then when I finally did upload the email, the picture was uploading one line at a time so it took about 20 minutes before I could even see the start of a roof. I left the computer to do other things since it was taking so long. When Shane got home I told him about my mom's phone call and said we should go check the pictures. The photo was still uploading but it had uploaded enough to tell that it was THE SAME EXACT HOUSE from the very beginning! The one we had been told had already sold.

I think we were in shock. Not only was it the same house, the one we were prompted to buy, but my mom had had a similar reaction when seeing it the first time.

Apparently the sale had fallen through. Then it went into foreclosure. And then it was finally ready to be put on the market again. All of that took time. That is why we were being told to push forward. The timing wasn't right at that moment, but the Lord knew we needed to get our financing in order for when it was ready. And maybe our faith needed to be tested too.

The financing was tricky because #1 We were poor and #2 We would be renting it out. But right when the financing finally worked out, the house was ready for us. Or maybe I have that backwards. Maybe we were finally ready for the house.

That is not where the miracles end. We called our real estate agent and said we wanted it and to put an offer on it. Our agent called whoever it was that represented the bank who owned it. The person on the other end of the phone was confused. Apparently the email regarding our house being for sale was not scheduled to go out until the next day. No other real estate agents (that we know of) had received the email except our agent. We were the first people to put an offer on it. After that a flood of others wanted in. But we knew it would be ours.

In all of this we asked the question of why? Why this house and why now? Why not a different house when we were done with school? Sometimes we don't ever know the whys and sometimes we don't find out until later. If you would ask me today I have a few answers.

First of all a practical one. The time we bought our house was when the housing market was super low right before it exploded and house prices skyrocketed. It was also a fixer upper and a foreclosed one to boot. It was a screaming deal and that my friends, is the only way we were able to afford it. Had we waited even a little while longer, we wouldn't have been able to buy a house for a long, long time (if ever).  Also, by having a small mortgage we were able to still pay our payments even when my husband was laid off 4 times.

Second of all, I feel like this is where we are suppose to be. I feel like I have met people I needed to meet living here. And every time Shane was laid off we prayed if we should relocate to a place that had more jobs and we were always told "no". I am sure there are other reasons that I don't know about, I just know we are where we are suppose to be.

And last of all, why this specific house? Because I believe in tender mercies. I believe in a loving Heavenly Father who knows us individually. I know Heavenly Father was mindful of a little girl who dreamed of, sketched, and loved "grandma" houses.

So now you know why I love this little house so much :)

Tomorrow I will show you the pictures of our house the real estate agent took that day. The REAL befores of this house that I have never posted before. I started blogging 3 (almost 4) years after we moved here so we did a lot before I ever started sharing it with others.

So tune in tomorrow!

UPDATE: Here is the post that shares the pictures :)