Just a Wandering Israelite
It wasn't my favorite house. In fact, I had fallen in love with two others, but so had two other families, and despite it not being my favorite, it became ours. I had an incredibly long laundry list of things I wanted to change. Some we got to, some we didn't, and in the end, I realized most weren't really that big of a deal after all. Yet, the new owners will thank me for relocating the vanity in the master bathroom ... a girl can only take so many massages from the toilet as she puts on makeup!
Somewhere along the way that unwanted house became my beloved home. It's where we brought our babies home, it's seen all of our happy moments ... and all of our sad. It was a safe haven. It's were we struggled as new parents, and then really struggled as new parents of three under three. It's where we realized the power of turning a baby monitor off and going to sleep. It's where we became us - the Warren's.
When Travis suggested we look for lots, I adamantly said no! Sure I wanted a half bath for guest so that my little girls didn't have to fall in a toilet bowl every time we had a male bathroom visitor, but I could put a sign up. I didn't have to move. I was comfortable, close to work and close to Walmart. What more could a girl ask for?
During Lent last year, we started reading the Bible chronologically. Travis kept insisting we look for land, I kept saying no. Praying that God would get us on the same timeline ... aka ... slow Travis down to fit my timeline. Three weeks after we started the Bible, we received a random insurance check for the twins. We'd already paid their medical bills, so I agreed to buy a lot with that money, but I wasn't building a house on it. Once again, I had an infamous laundry list of reasons why I wanted to stay. The only way I would build, was if x-y-z happened and the people who bought it would rent it back to us until we were done building. I knew how unrealistic that was, and that was why I chose those stipulations. We agreed to stay put for about 5 more years. A week later (week 4 of the Bible) we were on Spring Break and we received a call that people wanted to look at our unlisted house. They were also willing to rent our house back to us because they weren't ready to move in. For the second time in my life I felt chills as God told me I'm doing this for you. (The first was changing worship styles at our current church, but that's another story for another blog!) By Friday, we had two offers on our unlisted house and were in major prayer mode. We accepted the second offer, and then unaccepted it Saturday morning because I didn't have a peace about it. The first offer was the winner!! Everything was moving at rapid speeds and falling into place. Everything was completely God ordained.
... And then it wasn't or so I thought. We had an incredibly wet summer. We blew (or so we thought) our budget straight out of the gate with a huge 8.5 ft slope in what we thought was going to be a flat slab. After weeks of the framing crew not showing up, our builder framed the bottom half of the house. Then Hurricane Harvey hit, which should have NOTHING to do with us, except that it had EVERYTHING to do with us. Most of our framing crew left to make more money in Houston, and the ones that stayed came for a few days to frame the top, and then jumped ship without finishing. It was setback after setback.
I continued to wander and grumble the whole time. This has been one of the toughest years for me professionally and personally. I leave work on empty, completely emotionally drained and all out of grace and patience. Then I come home to my babies, who sometimes need/demand grace and patience. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with anything related to a house that I didn't really want to build. There were many days when I suggested, let's just quit or proclaimed I'm done, you can make all the decisions. We had delay after delay. December turned to January, January turned to February. Yet, God was still there and still faithful. By HIS grace, our precious landlords, who I will forever be indebted to, let us continue renting as we promised "just one more month, it should be finished." We finally had a move-in date that was set in stone mostly because I was moving in regardless of it being finished: February 24. About two weeks after we set that date, Travis was looking ahead in our Bible App to see when we would finish ... February 24. Chills right?! For the third time in my life, I got chills as God told me, this wasn't my journey, it was HIS. I realized I was just an Israelite wandering and grumbling in the desert to caught up on MYSELF to appreciate what HE was up. HE held my promise land in the palm of HIS hand. Just waiting for me to realize it.