JoyDrops

June 16, 2022

joy drops…

dare I say it…???

we are under contract on our home…

we don’t have to wait for their home to sell, but we still have inspection, appraisal, their loan to close and then our closing before it is completely official and we give them the keys so they can come home…but… they made an offer, we countered and they accepted and we all signed a contract for a new family to call this home of ours their home… so I share with baited breath, but still…we are under contract and that is so much more than we had 5 days ago! Prayers still coveted and appreciated! Thank you!

my emotions are all over the place…but mostly feeling very introspective since we signed…I’d like to share a little of the story of how we got here… well, of how God provided these buyers who made the offer… the story of how we got here, to this place in our lives, would take a novel and I’m not near ready to write that! 

on April 28th, after a full month of purging and cleaning and more purging and cleaning, we put a “For Sale by Owner” sign in our front yard. I posted on FaceBook and Marketplace and Zillow. We got some calls and had some showings and even had two verbal offers. One was just way too low and the other, we accepted, but the very next day interest rates went up and they backed out. We prayed about it and decided to list with a realtor. So, we dropped the price a bit and listed it on the MLS. We had two showings right away but no interest…then the wedding and a week to recover with no showings, not by my choice, but obviously God was allowing me some time to breath in every wonderful moment of the wedding and having ALL of our kids home from all over the country! This house actually felt like home for a couple of weeks! All sorts of shoes laying around, dirty towels on the bathroom floor, half empty water bottles, blankets scrunched up on the couches, bodies sleeping everywhere, a kitchen full of my people around the table and the island and lots and lots of doggie feet and toys all over. If you know even a little about me you know that I really was in my most happiest of happy places those two weeks…with all of my family all around…

after everyone left I had some time to realize that wasn’t really going to happen here again…and that’s when the tear drops started and haven’t really stopped…I was so worried we wouldn’t sell and upset that we might, I was excited about the new house, and dreading leaving home…I was having memories flood my every moment and wondering if we were ever going to sell and make new memories. Jesus and I even had a 10 round heavy weight fight over why He wasn’t sending someone! I was really letting Him have it, so much so that our golden doodle girls hid in their bed most of the morning! I kept telling Jesus that I knew we were following His lead but I didn’t understand why it was taking so long, why He hadn’t sent someone to walk through those doors and “feel like they were home”. I was tired and the worry was too heavy and I was losing my faith and couldn’t do this alone anymore, I needed Him to take all of it from me. I know it was not my finest moment, but it was raw and it was real and it was honest. 

that 10 round heavy weight fight with Jesus happened on Saturday. We had had a showing on Friday with no feedback at all. I was so tired of getting no feedback! It was making my anxiety worse! Then we had an open house on Sunday with only one couple walking through, then we had a showing right after the open house and on Sunday night still had no feedback or offers. Monday came with still no feedback from anyone! Then, Tuesday morning we got a text from our realtor and I literally had to read it 3 times out loud. We had an offer and she had just gotten a call from someone else who wanted to give an offer! But this first offer had a letter with it and she wanted to know if I had a moment to hear the letter. I did! The buyer wrote a beautiful letter giving their story of the Chicago area being home and how they’ve wanted to move home, and now had the chance to move home.  They closed the letter with this sentence, “after 25 years in MN, we are ready to come home and we felt at home in your home.”  Wait! Read that again!  She literally just said, “we are ready to come home and we felt at home in your home” She literally used the words I was shouting at Jesus! We knew immediately this was the family God called to our home!  We countered and sent our own letter and they accepted right away! 

we have a contract! 

we have someone who felt at home when they walked through the door

we have a new home to go to

the relief, the cautious relief, is lovely…

but at the same time it is not a relief…we will have to say good bye, our babies will have to say goodbye to their “forever home”. The only home Alaina really remembers…the home where all of our memories have happened, where ALL of the love and ALL of the kids and ALL of the everything have happened… but…like the saying that has hung forever above our door says, “home is where your heart says ahhhh.” 

i know for our kids, when they come here, when all or some of them are here, they can still hear their heart say ahhhh.” They can hear it because there are people here, they are here…and I get it…I remember being where they are, coming “home” to a new house I didn’t grow up in just didn’t feel like home…I just didn’t hear the ahhh…and it made me mad and so sad.

but now, Bob and I are on the other side of this…our nest is empty. There are none of our people here on the daily…there really isn’t an ahhhh…

we were standing in our big empty kitchen today, talking about our new house, and we both fell silent…not only are we missing our people, we just don’t hear our hearts saying ahhhh… this place isn’t home anymore…our kids aren’t here, our family isn’t here, our people aren’t here…we’ve become not only empty nesters, we’ve become temporarily homeless…we’re not even ever here except to sleep…we need a place to hear our hearts say ahhhh too…

it is a rare day to have home here…if home is really where your heart says ahhhh…home for us is not really here anymore…

home is really wherever we are with each other, with our people…this home doesn’t feel like home on the daily…so if that’s true, home is going to be wherever we are together, wherever our family are, wherever our people are…

if home truly is where my heart says ahhhh… and that happens most often when we are all together… then home isn’t just these Star Pass walls…

i remember feeling what my kids are feeling now, and so I will do my best to make our new house bring their hearts to a place they can say ahhhh…

i want them to know that home isn’t just these walls at Star Pass, home is where they are together with us, with their family, with their people. 

together is the welcome home…together is the sound of our hearts saying ahhh… 

and I’m pretty sure this is exactly what Jesus was wanting me to hear in my not so quiet waiting…