Waiting for a home

After I get married, I am moving away, starting my own, new life – new town, new job, new husband – and never depending on my parents again.

Or that’s what I thought anyway.

That was certainly my perspective in 2019 before I got married. I had recently started a new job as an outpatient dietitian, and after my wedding, I would be moving an hour away from my hometown to my and my husband’s apartment.

Before my wedding, my parents sold their house. I was still living with them at the time, and they offered it to me and my fiance. We turned them down. It wasn’t my favorite house and I naively thought we would find something better suited for us. Besides, I was trying to get away, not stay where I was.

Oh how I was so, so wrong.

We did get married, move to our apartment, and I loved my new job. Married life was great. We lived close to friends, and everything was good.

And then…COVID hit. Which actually, for us wasn’t terrible…until we decided to buy a house.

Nine months after being married and living in our new apartment, we made the decision to save money on rent, move in with my parents, and look for a house. As you can imagine, I was NOT excited about moving back in with my parents, but I assumed we’d find a house in a matter of months.

Unfortunately, so did many other people.

All of the houses in our price range were scooped up quickly – usually by out-of-staters offering cash.

It was very discouraging. When I was really struggling with discontentment and impatience, I did a self-study on patience in the Bible. I learned a lot, and felt much better. I understood and had faith that God would provide what we needed, and this His plan was better than any I could imagine. I learned to be grateful for what we had, and pray for what we hoped for.

We nearly put an offer on house that needed A LOT of work, but fortunately a pregnancy stopped us from that decision. Although we lost that pregnancy, I’m so grateful because we would likely have regretted buying that house.

Eventually, homes grew more and more expensive, and we stopped looking.

Then, my great aunts offered their land for us to build on. This sounded amazing! And we proceeded with the next steps. Unfortunately, we ended up waiting and waiting…and waiting on the land surveyor we were working with to do his job, and eventually it was too late anyway. Materials also became far too expensive. We couldn’t afford to build either.

So we settled where we were. We accepted that we would be with my parents for awhile, but we continued to pray. We asked God for a home of our home.

I had become pregnant again, and after my first son was born, it was a blessing living with my parents – there was in-home baby sitting! And neither of us had to deal much with the rigamarole of daycare drop off or pick up as we both went back to work.

When I became pregnant with my second son, however, space was beginning to get a little tight.

And one day, we learned that my mom’s cousin was moving into a nursing home – and likely not going back home. His sister wanted to sell his house to family, and were we interested?

Initially? No. It was a 975 square foot home that smelled of cigarette smoke due to years of indoor smoking, and needed a lot of work to make it functional for our growing family.

But, after visiting it a few times, and talking with my aunt and uncle (who are in construction) about how we could make it work for us, we began to get excited! I looked out the large kitchen windows and could envision our family in the back yard. It was even two houses down from my childhood home, and I became very nostalgic about growing up in this area. Maybe we could provide a similar experience for our own children living here?

We were told a possible price, and said yes! We’d be interested in buying it.

But then…

We were given an official price.

This price was about 35k+ more than we anticipated. And we almost said no. But, we decided we could make it work as long as we both stayed working.

And then…

Three days later I found out I was losing my job. All of my dietitian co-workers were. Our department was being shut down. Why? Who knows, nutrition is definitely a need in the community.

Anyway, we had to officially say no to the house.

And yet.. I kept thinking about it. It was “off the table” but I still kept imagining us there, wondering if there was a way to make it work.

We continued to pray.

And then…

My uncle, who is very busy, came to my parents’ house one night to sit down and talk with us. He convinced us the house was worth the investment, and he would help us fix it and add an addition. And my parents offered to loan us money to pay for it.

We didn’t love the idea of borrowing money, but what my uncle said made sense.

So we went for it! We bought a house. After living with my parents for four years, we FINALLY owned a home! And it is perfect for us at this time.

Throughout the whole process we prayed and trusted God to provide a home that would be good for our family when the timing was right and He did. We were patient and He provided. His plan, as always, was so much better than ours.

It was wonderful raising our sons with my parents’ help. My 89-year-old grandmother, who also lives with my parents, continues to say how grateful she is she was able to spend so much time with her great-grandsons and see them grow.

This house and this space is so much better than any other house we looked at in those four years, and anything that we could afford now that is remotely close to where we needed to be. We are so grateful to be here, for the friends and family that made this house possible for us, and so thankful for God’s provision of it all.