Finding a New Place to Call Home

In March, I posted a disheartening saga that detailed our (my) struggles in finding a new home. And now, two months later, I get to wrap up that story for you. It’s been a pretty cool journey.

At the end of 2017, one of our church’s pastors—who wasn’t looking for a new position—ended up taking a new job a few hours away. I’d grown fairly close to his wife after she had led a fabulous Bible study (Gloria Furman’s Missional Motherhood) I’d attended. Plus, she’s an overall delightful, faithful woman, so friendship was easy.

In February, I reached out to her, letting her know we were beginning to house hunt, and asking if they were planning on listing their home. I’d never seen it, but I had the feeling it fit a lot of our criteria. She responded that another family had asked ahead of us, but she’d keep us in mind, should they list the home in the near future.

Fast forward to the end of March.

This was when I posted about how depressing house hunting can be. You fall in love with a home, make an offer, make a boatload of plans, then watch your dreams die as they take a different offer. Then you’re back to Zillow and house showings. Sigh.

I was starting to refocus on our current home and was trying to decide how to make it more workable for our family. I was tired of getting my hopes up only to be let down. I was feeling a bit dramatic as well.

In early April, my friend texted telling me they’d decided to list their house and the other family said they should show anyone who was interested.

Honestly, I wasn’t really feeling it, but I felt we should at least go see it.

I knew from my stalker research on the property appraiser’s website (coupled with Google Maps street view and an old Zillow listing) that it was a nice, well-kept house that ticked a lot of boxes for us.

I realize it would be cool for me to now write, “When I stepped across the threshold, my breath caught, and I knew, I just knew, that this would be our forever home!” But, it wasn’t quite that emotionally driven. Or maybe life isn’t an episode of Say Yes to the Dress.

The house just made sense. It’s lovely and checks every one of our needs and wants. I could have a playroom for the kids. The laundry room wouldn’t require me to walk sideways to enter, like ours does now because that’s where I chuck all recyclable, plastic grocery bags. The master bedroom could hold everything we have and leave room for a desk work space. There’s a fourth bedroom for guests, and a big, shady backyard for our kids’ swing set (not to mention a huge driveway with plenty of room for George to write the ABCs in chalk). The price was right, and it really fit our family perfectly.

Needless to say, we wrapped up the house-hunting saga today. I truly believe my friend prayed us into this position. I had pretty much given up on looking for a new home. Moving is a lot of work anyway, so it wasn’t overly difficult to give up the idea. However, it looks like God had a different plan, especially considering we handed over a check and signed on the line today.

I love that we’ve made friends who love us enough to help us move five minutes down the road. (Ahem. Here’s looking at you, friends. Please come help us move my husband’s boxes and boxes of textbooks! Oh, and maybe my handful of material possessions as well…)

Side Note: For the record, I truly believe if you’ve made friends who will 1.) help you move, and 2.) drive you to the airport, you’ve successfully built a strong community for yourself. Those are the signs of true, enduring friendship.

And now, we have the bittersweet joy of moving out of our first home—the little ranch to which we brought both our babies home and in which we taught them how to walk (stifled sob!)— and into a place with more space to grow. Change is always hard, and I do worry it’ll be challenging for our babies. Today, though, they just had fun rolling around in an empty house and claiming rooms as their own. Surprisingly, George picked the smallest room, even though we alerted him to this fact. He wants to paint it “blue lagoon” after his favorite Crayola marker. I’m going to grant that wish.

I hope your dreams are being filled today too. I’d love to hear about them.