Well, it has been a while since I have written on my blog, but I have good reason for that. My wife and I recently sold our house in Stillwater and have successfully relocated in the metro area. The images are just for viewing pleasure to illustrate how God has blessed me with an awesome wife and child aside from material possessions. This is the first time my wife and I had to sell a home in one city and buy a home in another. I look back on this experience and feel somewhat guilty, because God truly blessed me and my family in this process. I think Jesus would have told me on a daily basis for a month straight the words he uttered on a mountainside to crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan, as found in Mt. 6:30.......c'mon, say it with me, "Oh, you of little faith." In the moment, sometimes we can't help to stress. That is why we have to take a step back and look at what is going on. In the church, we often call this a retreat. A retreat doesn't have to be an activity-filled event scheduled by a minister that last for days and costs an arm and a leg. We can take daily retreats in the form of journaling, prayer, reading and reflection, and many others. And we can do it in the comfort of our own home. 
As I reflect upon this experience, I can see how much God was working. I couldn't see it at the time because I was too consumed with helping God out....what a joke. I think it's kinda funny that He allowed me to think that I was the one actually taking care of things. I'm thankful God isn't emotionally reactive or we'd all be looking over our shoulder. So....while I was stressing out on the phone with realtors, bankers, handymen, and running errand after errand....God was busy working for me and my family. I've often caught myself saying that "everything just fell into place." I'm sorely mistaken. Things didn't just fall into place....God put things in place exactly where he wanted them to be.
He began by giving us a realtor that worked very hard to sell our home. While the home next door sat without any showings for months, our home showed the very first day on the market and 5 times total. We had an offer made on the house one day shy of 3 weeks. And better yet, the young man was a college student and wanted to close near the end of the semester, which gave us plenty of time to look for a home to buy. Later we found out that neither this college student nor his mother ever saw the home in person, but just looked at pictures on the web. And to put the cherry on top, we walked away with enough equity to put a nice, conservative down payment on our new home (note: we'd only lived in this house for almost 4.5 yrs). With the economy in the shape it is in right now, one can't ask for better results. God is so good.
So, my wife and I spent a weekend looking at homes in the metro area. God blessed us with another great realtor. I'm not sure, but I think our price range was way below than her normal clientele. But, she never said a word about it....she dug up several homes for us to go see and drove my wife and I and our 10 month old son (at that time) around all day on Saturday and half day on Sunday looking at homes. The 2nd house she showed us had just been on the market 5 days. She said it didn't appear to be what we were looking for (note: there was no pictures at all on the web), but since it was in the area, she thought we'd go take a look. We bought that house. (Click the link to see video from my wife's blog). And to make things better, they accepted our 1st offer. And to add the cherry on top, they agreed to close on the same day we were closing in Stillwater. God is so good.
Now comes the truck rental. I went with Budget, which I'd highly recommend. They were over $200 cheaper than U-Haul, and they gave us an extra day for FREE. We had about 7 men from our church show up on a cold Sunday afternoon to help us load. We closed in Stillwater on the following Monday morning with no problems whatsoever and then closed in the metro area that afternoon....again, flawless. We unloaded our truck in the dark, but knocked in out in a matter of a couple of hours because so many of our wonderful friends and family showed up to help. I even had a friend and his wife drive my truck down from Stillwater, with her finals coming up and a dissertation defense for him. God is so good.
I know this was a lengthy entry, but I really wanted to share this experience.....I even left some things out. My next/current spiritual journey?.....going into private practice. WooHoo! I'm excited and nervous, but am confident that I probably will try to help God out again. He'll let me amuse him for a while, then he will show me reality....that He is the one that is truly faithful. He's so good...to....me.
