…continued from yesterday
I’m probably the only one still interested in this whole story at this point, but I’m recording it for posterity and because I firmly believe we need “Ebenezer stones” in our lives to remind us of what we have lived and how God has shown up for us, as I know at least for myself, we “forget the things we should remember, and remember the things we should forget” as one author put it recently.
The exact order of events in my mind is hazy, but I distinctly remember writing the house owner’s a note to send with our first offer the night before, explaining a bit of our journey and why we believed God had led us to their house. Not knowing if they’d just think we were crazy, but knowing this was one way we could bring God into the conversation and give Him any credit due. Long story short, they agreed to an offer that was significantly lower than asking but suited them still and was low enough that we didn’t feel tight chests whenever we thought about monthly payments. We didn’t think it’d be possible, but impossible is exactly when God shows up and (pardon the irreverence) says, “hold my beer.”
We received a lovely note back after all the paperwork had settled from the wife, explaining that the same morning she got the note from us, she was praying for a nice young family to come and buy the house, that would appreciate it and care for it like they had, and that our note had just made her feel so at ease! God was all over this. I now sit in the same spot overlooking the pond that she had occupied on the deck when I take my coffee outside in the mornings, carrying on the tradition!
We asked if we could do another walk through before we left for Ontario, to take photos and some measurements for furniture and practical things like that, and they agreed. THIS time, the small red shed next to the house was unlocked (they’d just forgotten the day before, as it’s a shed, it wasn’t a big deal for us to see inside at the time) so we clambered up the wood steps to see the loft. There was a desk sitting in almost the middle of the room. It was like Indiana Jones coming upon the statue minutes before he has to roll a giant ball of stone, because there, in a single shaft of light that just so happened to be shining squarely on the desk at that moment, was Bible. Cue all the neon signs and “COULD I MAKE THIS ANY MORE CLEAR” from on high.
We made it home to Ontario, and the packing started in earnest. We had our marching orders and our answers, and two months later we packed up the kids and the cat, some of my and Andrews siblings came along for the ride, and headed (some across country with a trailer that made it solely because guardian angels were holding up the axles, some with a cat as a carry-on on an airplane) for our new home in the hills.
While we were preparing to move, I had had a chance to share this story at our church’s ladies tea time, and I realized that while some might call all this serendipitous, we knew better. God had used a still, small, constant voice to get us to where we needed to be, to change our hearts so we were ready for this gigantic life event, and to make all the external pieces fit so everything worked out in exactly the right way and time. He’d even sent a moose messenger, our “Serendipimoose” as I’d tongue in cheek call it. So it became my new design moniker, to remind me of how and why I could do what I do and of the road we’d taken to get there. And now, I’ll have also to spell it for people for the rest of my life. Worth it.