back to the drawing board...

Sorry I've left everyone hanging about the housing stuff...Vance and I went out of town for a conference for a couple of days, so we're just now getting back into the swing of things.

We didn't get the house. It's a long story, as you can imagine, but the very unethical realtor we were dealing with, after refusing to sign our paperwork, considered two identical offers, and chose the other one.

It's been really disappointing. That was the only house that we saw that we had liked, and we really liked it. It had so many of the little details that I had wanted but hadn't even put on our "wish list" that we'd given to the realtor. It seemed so perfect for us. But it's not going to be ours. In a way, it almost makes me feel better that the door was slammed so hard in our face--it makes me realize so clearly that God is saying no. If we had just put an offer in and had been outbid, I could have agonized over whether we should have offered more, etc. But we had done everything "right", and our offer was accepted...until it wasn't.

In the midst of my disappointment, though, God has really been so merciful. We went to a small group leaders conference with our church (no, we're not small group leaders at our new church, but like one of our fnew riends here said, they sometimes open up the conference to people who are really, well...troubled :). It was exactly what we both needed: to get away from the stress of new work/new city/new schedule/epic house fail and just focus on Christ, and the joy that it is to live for him alone. In that frame of reference, I was able to remember again that it is a joy to experience little disappointments like this because it means that God is after my heart, teaching and shaping me to be more like him. In this case, I think he's working on my patience, perserverance, and chronic whinyness (hmm, sounds like what I'm teaching my kids too! Go figure :)

So anyway, we're bummed. Especially when we have to slog through more listings of houses that aren't very appealing. And at the same time, we're happy to experience a little disappointment if it means we can become a little more like Christ.

Now if I can only remember that when I walk through the 23,490,824th house that I don't like :)