In short, we are in the process of cleaning up a short sale
that we hope will be ours by the
beginning of November. The bank has
indicated that it is willing to move forward, but nothing is final yet. We have an apartment until the middle of
October. So we've been hiring dumpsters,
bombing fleas, sorting garbage, killing
mold, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning on the understanding that once a bank
has gone this far, it will not withdraw, and the simultaneous understanding
that our pre-approval letter is good and will follow through when the ball is
in our court.
Man, am I beat. I
have never seen a mess like this. We
filled two twenty yard dumpsters from the material left behind in a three bedroom house, its garage, and
backyard. There were ten people living at this house. The neighbors say that the previous tenants
never washed their clothes. They just
went to church charity shops and picked up more. Then they bagged the leftovers and tossed them
in the garage. Amid the wreckage we've
found fish tanks, stuffed animals, VHS tapes, quarters, a kayak paddle, a keyboard,
all kinds of crazy food, cushy kiddy chairs, a fridge that could have walked away on its own in a
few weeks, insulin bottles, and clothes, clothes, clothes.
They must have lived without power or water toward the
end. The house itself is filthy. Mattresses were stuck to the floors. We put the kayak paddle to work scraping gunk
off the walls. I spent Saturday
scrubbing down two of the bedrooms while Seth and a neighbor hauled junk in the
rain (and cleaned out the fridge. Thank
you, Love. I don't think I could have tackled
that.), and today, I'm going out to soak the floors with vinegar and cover them
with cedar chips to get rid of the cat smell.
The mold is gone. The scum is
gone. There's one stubborn gummy worm
that refuses to come up for anything short of a razor blade. I'll have to tackle that tomorrow. I didn't get anywhere near the windows, which
are probably original to the house (single pane, wooden frames). It's not just that I ran out of time. The spiders wouldn't let me get close.
Cleaning up this house has been a real exercise in Christian faith because we still don't know that we're going to get it. We have the reassurance of the
realtor. He says he's never seen a deal
go this far without going through. And
there have been sundry little assurances not related to the process. A coworker has some good used appliances to
sell cheap. A lady at my Bible study said her parents moved into their house before closing fifty years ago and lived there for thirty years. Help shows up at the right
moment. My one ESL student tells me that many of
her classmates are looking for a good tutor, and they all go to school three
blocks from our prospective house. Wonders
like this are all reassuring enough to keep my eyes on the goal.
But there have been little discouragements too. We discovered a lien on all the utilities,
which keeps us from turning on the power until we have a contract with a
signature on it. The closing costs are
about $3000 more out of pocket than we had anticipated. We had
to pay for a second load of garbage to be removed, which puts us a little
beyond our budget already, and we haven't even bought paint. And it all just stays so dirty. There's nothing to stop the bank from
turning around and pulling a Jim Butler* on us and asking for more money. We've put a lot of sweat equity into a place
that's still their house.
We have an end
goal. We have good reason to believe we
will achieve it. However, the daily
certainty of having a deed with our name on it doesn't exist yet. I'm going to breathe a huge sigh of relief
when we come to a point of ownership/residence, but until then, we keep working
and cleaning, bringing our house closer to our vision of a home, and
hoping.
Part of the reason that I can't just sail through this
period with sanguine hope is that my happy ending instinct took a serious ding
when we lost Baby Blessed.
Is my baby in
a better place? Absolutely.
Is my salvation secure? Definitely.
Will all these tears be wiped away?
By God's own hand. I have it in writing.
Are we guaranteed peace and prosperity? Not a bit.
Will we have everything we work and hope for in this life? That depends.
Does it match up with God's will?
And by will, I don't just mean his stated commandments. I mean the plan for our personal developments
into the progress of His kingdom.
The first part of the answer to that great question is
"I don't know, and I won't know until it happens." It is possible to run along on Kingdom work
and miss what God intends for us. (Just ask Phil Vischer, or better yet, read
his autobiography**.) Yes, this that I
am doing seems good to me, but maybe I'm focusing on the wrong traits to
develop, and I certainly can't see what the future is going to require of
me. I can't just say, "It's good for me, so
God wants me to have it."
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of
your heart" (NIV Ps. 37:4) has to be balanced with "In this
world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world" (NIV John 16: 33), not to mention the
whole book of Job.
The second part of the answer to that great question is
"No matter what happens, God is good." The grand lesson that all this uncertainty is
teaching me (I do not thrive on uncertainty) is that happiness comes not from
knowing how things will work out but instead from floating on the will of God,
living responsibly, and caring more about seeing and knowing Him than about
what happens to this house. "Let
goods and kindred go," says Martin Luther.
Under what circumstances would I be prepared to do that? Maybe God is using this time to put my hopes
in perspective. "Even if/when all
this works out as you had dreamed, remember that this is not the be all end all
of my plans for you. I want you to keep
moving forward, to build my kingdom, and if it is necessary, I will take it all
away again."
There is good reason to believe that we will achieve this house, so we keep cleaning, budget revising, some packing, and cleaning some more. But really, what else can I do? This is our best and only apparent
option. The house I hope to move into is a mess. If I want it to be a home, I need to clean it up. And if God deems otherwise, I will
freak out for a little while, and then we'll pursue plan B (as in "Be
still and know that I am God" NIV Ps.
46:10).
Update: We have the bank's paperwork. That makes us confident enough to buy paint and begin prepping for move in. God is good.
*Garland, Hamlin.
"Under the Lion's Paw."
The Norton Anthology of American
Literature, 5ed, vol.2. ed. Nina
Baym. 645-655. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. Print.
**Vischer, Phil. Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story about
Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables. Thomas
Nelson, 2008. Print or Digital.
Scriptures from New International
Version. Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation,
2005. Kindle Edition.
