bobby posting:

(Today, I’m writing the account of what’s happened here in our family. Here shortly, my wife will come back and post in a more thoughtfully analytical way (no pressure, Angel). I’m just getting the facts out.)

(also, something new here at the Harrisonian.  When it fits, we’ll try to put a song with a post.  So turn up the speakers and listen while you read.  Here’s one of my favorites right now from a group called the Deep Dark Woods.  Little tongue-in-cheek for you.)

The Deep Dark Woods – All the Money I Had is Gone

2 weeks ago, I sat staring at this same screen, writing on this same blog that this year had the potential to be our biggest year ever! Well I can report back now, 14 days later, that we’re still right on track! Me and the missus have spent the last month “casually” looking at houses. A couple of weeks ago, we called up our dear friend Kalynn Hill, who is a realtor, and asked if she’d show us around a few places. We love Kalynn and her whole family. We’ve been to Africa with her, babysat her daughter when she was younger, and really think of her like an Aunt that lives out of town or some other member of your family that you only ever see the good side of.

As we’d walk into places, Kalynn would immediately point out the good, bad, and ugly. After a week and a half of this, me and Ames had a pretty good idea of what was out there. We saw what kind of home we could get for our price range, but we also knew what we really wanted in a home and believed we’d find it somewhere, sometime. We really wanted an open living area. A nice big living room that was open to the kitchen. We like having folks over and we wanted a space that was conducive to that. We also wanted a good kitchen and a sizable backyard.

Well, 6 days ago, after having lunch with some good friends, we decided we’d looked enough online at homes and that maybe we should drive around neighborhoods we liked. After 20-30 minutes of this, we started to narrow the path down a bit and began to make our way back home. But, with Ames driving, we took a turn and found one more FOR SALE sign. The most exciting part was the little “price reduced” sign that’d been attached. We pulled into a driveway and the wife got out to look into the windows. I always think this would just be hilarious to watch from a living room across the street…all your “potential” neighbors looking into an empty house…you secretly pulling for certain couples to get back in the car and keep on driving! After staring into the house for a sec, Ames turned back to me with that same face that a young child gives you when you tell them they can have a cookie before dinnertime. We immediately called Kalynn and Amy’s mother, and within minutes the four of us were walking around the Harrisonian “dream home”. Wide open dining room/foyer when you walk in that connects right to a great, big living room with built-in bookshelves and a wood burning fire place (both things Amy really wanted, but definitely was not demanding). Then Kalynn dropped the bomb on us: somebody else was making an offer on this house…that day!!! Lets just say it made that initial walk-thru a little more intense. We fell hard and fast for it. Kalynn left for the office to work out what we’d need to do to make an offer too! The three of us headed to the backyard and prayed over the process. We prayed that God would be glorified from beginning to end in this situation. We prayed that we would hold loosely to this home. We prayed that God would put us as a family in a place where he could use us for his purposes…and we prayed that maybe this wasn’t that place. We immediately did all we could to give it all over to Him.

Within a couple of hours, I found myself in a realty office that I’d driven by a million times since I could first drive. I thought of all the vehicles I’d been in as I passed this building. My sister’s old Nissan Sentra. My 1982 Jeep CJ7. My mom’s old Isuzu Trooper (R.I.P.) (I loved that car). I looked at what me and Amy were wearing: grey cardigans. Seriously, the day I make my first offer on a house I’m wearing a grey cardigan at the same time that my wife is? Silly and unbelievable. I knew I’d have to sign 6000 pieces of paper, but other than that, this was not at all what I pictured this process to look like. We spent an hour going over everything and went back to our beautiful rent home shell-shocked and hopped up on life’s version of Mountain Dew. That was on a Friday. Because this past Monday was a holiday, we wouldn’t find anything out until Tuesday. Four gruelling days.

While meeting with Kalynn again, four days later, we upped our competing offer to our max (that was still within our “comfort zone”) and signed papers for the last time. We were told we’d hear the next day now. Then…a few hours later, Amy popped her head into my office downstairs at the church and screamed, “We got the house!” Shocked. I was shocked. Absolutely, jaw-on-the-floor-shocked. Some may call that “buyer’s remorse”. Some would simply call it hysteria.

There’s still 2-4 weeks of closing everything up before we officially “get” the house. Things can go wrong and take a turn for the worse. But we are pretty confident (as much as can humanly be) that it’ll all go smoothly. God has certainly already been glorified through this story. As Amy will probably write about here in a couple-few days, every major decision of our relationship has been strikingly quick and strangely similar to this one. All I know is that for the next few weeks, before we actually end up in that home, I may have to don that grey cardigan at least once a day for good luck. Maybe all you fellows out there should go look for one yourself. I found mine at Saver’s for 5 bucks. May be the best Abe Lincoln you’ve ever spent.