The Perfect House

I've never been a super patient person.  I'm not sure what parent to blame that on, but for as long as I can remember, I've not been a fan of waiting.  I was always the kid on the road trip asking my parents a million times over, "How much longer until we get there," five minutes into the trip.  It only got worse the older I got, as I impatiently waited to find out if I made the volleyball team, waited to see if I got the job I applied for, or waited for my now husband to propose to me.  I never liked waiting.

Our infertility journey was a "wait" that at times almost broke me.  There were so many days where I felt like giving up on God (start at the very beginning of this blog journey), giving up on the dreams and desires I believed he had planted inside of me, and giving up on the idea that he had a plan and the plan was good.  Years of struggling with infertility and 25 months of waiting to be matched in an adoption process has a way of testing your level of patience.

Yesterday, I stood in the middle of a house that I had hoped would be "the one."  It wasn't the first time either.  For the past two months, our family has been searching for a house that we could buy.  I guess I was naive to think that we would just search Zillow, pick out the dream house that's in our price range, call our realtor, and buy it (living in parsonages...aka church houses...your whole life will do that to you).  Apparently, it's a little more complex than that.  There's bidding, higher bidding, and the person who bids highest gets to stop being impatient.  So far, that's not been me.

This morning, I kind of panicked.  We've been renting an airbnb from a family at church and it's AMAZING!  They've been super kind to us, and it's perfect for this season.  But we need to be in a house by the summer so that the kids can enroll in a school this Fall.  The pressure was real this morning and truth be told, that house yesterday seemed pretty awesome.  It was beautiful inside and out, well maintained, freshly painted, and move in ready.  Anyone who would have seen it would have said, "Yes!  I'll take it!"  There was just one problem.  Nate and I both knew in our heart of hearts it wasn't the one.

We've talked about what's most important to us in choosing a house.  It isn't finding a house that has the best appliances, or a house that is perfectly painted.  It's not finding house with a white picket fence or a freshly renovated bathroom.  It's finding a house that we will be able to do life with people.  A house big enough to entertain friends and get to know our neighbors.  A house with enough space to open our home to someone who might need it.  A house that will allow our kids to play, create memories, and invite friends to do the same.  A house that sits in a neighborhood and school system with different cultures.  A house where God sized dreams can come to fruition and we get to be a small part of it.

As I stood in the middle of that house yesterday, I couldn't help but think back to my infertility journey.  While "waiting" almost broke me, it was "waiting," that became one of my greatest teachers.  I learned the truth about God's goodness, the steadiness of God's faithfulness, and in the end, experienced the joy of letting God's sized dreams come to fruition.

If I'm honest, some days the waiting gets the best of me, and I find myself reverting back to my five year old self, asking God with wide eyes, "How much longer?"  But then I remember what happens when we wait.  So tonight, I'm choosing to embrace the wait.  And while I wait, I'm praying for those God sized dreams to come to fruition.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Donut Story

Image
When I was about five years into being a Youth Pastor, I met a group of kids that changed my life.  Many of you reading this, who know me personally, have probably heard me talk about them numerous times.  Nate and I happened to live in the parsonage next door to the church I was serving at at the time, and would routinely come home to a group of boys that I would have described then as "rough around the edges."   They dressed mostly in black, had long hair, and sometimes even had black painted fingernails.  They loved to smoke, and they loved to skateboard.  After a few days of watching them through our window, Nate and I went outside and brought them some sodas.  We introduced ourselves, told them I was the Youth Pastor at the church, and invited them to come to youth group.  While they politely declined our invitation, we continued to invite them over and over again, attempted to skate with them, and fill them with snacks.  Until one day, ...
Read more

A Mother's Heart...

Image
It was the night before we were ready to leave for Ethiopia that it dawned on me. We hadn’t given the necklace to Biruk yet. When we had exchanged necklaces with his birth mom ten years prior at the orphanage, we had no idea when we would give it to him. We just knew that we wanted him to be old enough to appreciate it, as it would be the only thing he would have from her. We had no idea if we would ever see her again.  There have been several moments in our journey where I’ve had to pinch myself, because it has felt like I was dreaming. That night as we put our final things in our suitcases, took a deep breath, and came to the realization that we were not only taking our kids to Ethiopia, but that Biruk would in fact meet his birth mom…well, you had to pinch me, because it felt like I was dreaming. It also felt like the perfect moment to share this gift that we had been holding onto for 10 years. So we pulled out the necklace and gave it to Biruk. While words can be few and...
Read more

Stories Matter

Image
Yesterday, my family and I found ourselves at a local elementary school’s culture club, presenting about our trip to Ethiopia. Even as I write those words, it kind of blows my mind how God has continued to use our story in unexpected places. When the kids were old enough to understand, we began to talk about taking them back to their birth country when they turned 10. We figured at 10, they would be old enough to be pretty good travelers, but still approach the adventure with a childlike wonder. What we didn’t plan on, was that the year Biruk turned 10 would come on the heels of me taking a brand new job, our family moving to a new state, and buying our very first house, in an economy that felt as though it was tanking!  I remember talking to my counselor one day and sharing with him that while we had always promised this trip to our kids, it just didn’t seem to make financial sense. After all, last time I checked, Southwest Airlines does not travel to Africa. He said someth...
Read more