We got the(a) house!

"We got the House!"

We will be moving to Georgia in June. We thought it would make sense to look for rental houses after our house here sold and passed the inspection process. It would be a little too much to manage life and showings and packing AND looking for a rental house. We got the "all-clear" after Spring Break in April. And after a torturous 6 weeks (REALLY - seems like the torture lasted longer than that!) of looking for a rental house, not taking the process too seriously and taking our time looking and waiting for the "perfect" rental house, then realizing that these houses go within TWENTY FOUR HOURS  down there.... we have a signed lease, people!

We started off being picky - we want a fenced-in yard, 3 or 4BR preferably with a playroom, in the zone of two particular schools, swimming pool community... and by the end we were like We will take ANYTHING. The swimming pool idea left long ago, fenced-in yard would have been nice but we figured we could work around that, 4BR plus bonus room not gonna happen... our two areas of NO compromise were the schools and timing - we'd like to have the lease start before or when we get down there! There were a few (not perfect) options available in August but we would rather not have to go through that mental/physical challenge of making THAT work.

We went after four houses. And lost every one of them. The first it was us and another family and they were selected. The second was a realtor telling me his client might be interested in renting but once it got closer to my time to visit GA, the house was under contract so that was off the table. House #3 I found via Craiglist. I toured it and it seemed ALMOST perfect. It didn't have a room for a playroom so maybe would could turn the dining room or garage into a playroom? And we would have to rent a mini storage for all of our decorating stuff/boxes we wouldn't be opening. But it had a community pool nearby and was in the school district we wanted. After the tour I asked her what paperwork she needed us to sign/what amount we needed to put down, etc. And then she said there were two other parties interested and both were lease-purchase. Well that goes that. I kind of had a 5 minute mini-panic attack. We were moving in 6 weeks! We had no house!

We took a MAJOR step of faith by saying no to a house. It wasn't "perfect" but was close BUT it wasn't in the schools we wanted to be in. OF COURSE the people REALLY wanted us to be their renters - said we sounded like exactly what they were looking for as renters. But Bob and I prayed for guidance and felt very clearly that God wanted us to say no. So we did.

We prayed. Agonized. Went through the gamut of emotions - stress, fear, worry, anger, and finally WHATEVER God, you are in charge! Seriously, for me it was such a peaceful place to be - the timeframe was so tight and us being so far away trying to tie-up a house quickly was just not something we could do on our own. I don't like pain or stress so I said "Ok God - you're in charge now! I can't wait to see what you bring us!" We had two women's Bible studies praying for us, friends, parents, great-grandmas... (thank you EVERYONE! Something as basic as having a home to live in is kind of a big deal!) We set a date of June 2 as the "if we don't find anything, maybe we can live in a townhome/apartment and keep our dogs with family for 3-6 months, however long it takes to find a place" deadline.

Which brings us to Monday, May 26th. Memorial Day, a day off of work, the City of Lebanon parade and Stephen's 7th birthday. I was outside on the awesome deck enjoying the sun (haven't seen it in ages) and got a call from our realtor in GA. We decided that we needed help/feet on the ground in finding a home and he has been so patient with us! There was a house that would appear on the MLS the next day so we had a slight head start. Turns out there were three other families going after this house. I had full faith in God at this point (what else COULD I do)? But I wrote them a little blurb anyway to try to tell them why they should rent to us! I told them how financially responsible we are, sent picture of our house to show how we'll take care of their house, and told them how excited we were about this house b/c we'd been looking for so long and it seemed to be perfect for us. They picked us!

I was SURE God would "Refine" us by stretching out the date to the very last day and then "Whammo" there's the house! And can I tell you how perfect this house is for us? It has EVERYTHING we wanted PLUS MORE. A dog-washing station! A secret room in the basement! A soundproof music room! A finished kitchen in the basement! And it's really really big. We don't even use the basement except as a storage room (don't have to pay for mini storage!) and there's a huge room just for the dogs. There's a basketball goal across the street and a community pool 1/4 mile down the road. And it's in the school zone we wanted! AAAAAAAND at the same price as all those other houses for 2x the house. PRAISE GOD! He is tooooo good to us!

When I spoke with the homeowner, he told us "for some reason, we felt led to pick you". I said "I'll tell you why - it's b/c there were about 100 people up here in New Hampshire praying that you would pick us!" :)) And there you have it. God is trustworthy, good, loves us, and has SO MUCH BETTER in store for us than we would pick/settle for ourselves. Bob and I still look around in awe that we are in this house. It's so BIG. And the finish-out is so NICE! Thank you, Lord. We are blessed.

FOLLOW-UP:
About a week or two after signing the lease, two of the four houses we had considered showed up as available again. Interesting how God works (removing them as choices) :))