Houses and Holding Patterns

Let it be known that we were not looking for a house to buy. Nor were we planning to sell our current abode.

In fact, only days before we decided to do both, we were cleaning out our basement and making long-overdue plans to remodel the space into a school room.

Then our neighbors put a sign in their front yard and we looked out our window and began to wonder about the possibility of relocating our stuff across the street.

After all, their house has a larger yard, four bedrooms instead of three, a laundry chute, and a window seat in the master bedroom.

Best of all, the basement is already finished, with a room that could be perfect for school, which is quite appealing right now, since neither Wesley or I just love DIY home-improvements.

(In fact, there are MANY other ways we would rather spend our time and energy, given the choice!!!)

Also- there's the yard thing. When we moved into this house on the edge of town seven years ago, we knew the yard wasn't huge, but our oldest was two and our second child was born weeks after the move, so the stage of life we were in made the grassy spots seem plentiful. Now, with four children and a row of boys who think that sports and balls are the next best thing to sliced bread, we're feeling just a bit different. Our neighbor's yard still isn't huge, and we still wouldn't be raising beef cattle or getting a flock of chickens, but the grassy lot to the side of the house would be plenty big enough for a soccer game or a volley ball net, and would enable us to spread out a bit more without needing to leave the neighborhood we've come to love.

We've known since sometime this past winter that our neighbors were planning to sell their house, but it wasn't until we saw the "For Sale By Owner" sign in the yard that the fact hit home and we began rolling around what seemed like a rather absurd possibility...what if we could buy it?

On the very day that the notion was still just that, a tiny notion, the neighbors themselves knocked on our door and asked if we would be interested in some furniture they needed to get rid of, since they are downsizing to a duplex. We said yes, and the very next day, we trotted over to look at the furniture...and to rather surreptitiously look around a bit while we were there.

For the record, it was not the first time that we had been in the house, but you look at a place a bit differently when you're mulling over a notion, and you could say that we liked what we saw.

Right before leaving, Wesley asked in an off-handed manner just what they were asking for the place.

Now, we have felt from the very beginning that any number of road blocks could keep us from actually buying the house, and one of them, obviously, was the possibility that the owners would want more for the house than we could afford, so when they quoted a price that was lower than we thought it might be, we felt that one road block had been moved and that we could proceed a little further down the road.

And what was further down the road? Why more obstacles, of course...each one vaulted with relative ease: we talked to a realtor, discussed our notion with people whose judgement we trusted, got an estimate on the value of our house, were pre-approved for a loan at the bank, and signed a ridiculous amount of papers and wavers.

We cleaned the house, mulched the flower beds, put a new kitchen faucet in, replaced a moldy shower curtain liner with a new one, fixed a porch post that Parker had damaged with a crocket mallet, cleaned some more, and put our house on the market.

And herein lies the final obstacle. We have to sell this house- and by the end of August, the contract states- if we are to buy our neighbor's house. It is so close (we could show the house and get an offer tomorrow!) and so far away (it might never sell!!!) all at the same time.

I keep thinking of the phase of life we're in right now as a holding pattern. We have had a number of showings, and each time we scramble around to clean and make the house presentable and appealing, but right now there is a lot of waiting. And then waiting some more.

Sometimes the unknown people walking through our house and peering into our closets take a booklet with extra information and photos sitting on our kitchen counter, and sometimes not. Sometimes we get some feedback on what they didn't like about the house, and sometimes not.

Sometimes I feel OK with the waiting and wondering, and sometimes not.

One thing I do know is that whether or not we sell our house and move across the street, there is a refining process going on!

The biggest waste I can imagine from this summer of house showings and living a little more than usual under an aura of unknown, is that I will not use it to grow in patience, and in faith in an Omnipotent God.

Maybe come fall we will be tearing mottled, brown shag carpet off the walls in our basement and honing our dry-wall-hanging skills.

Maybe I will be teaching school in a yellow house and sitting on my very own window seat to overlook a familiar street from a whole new perspective.

Or maybe it will be something else entirely.

When I get tired of hovering and just want to land this plane, it helps to remember that God knows the beginning and the end of this story.

Better yet, He wants to be the One writing it.

And as much as I like to write things myself, I am trying, trying, trying, to let Him do just that.