Early in January of this year, I heard the Lord say to me something like, “You are going to move. I am telling you now so you won’t be surprised when it happens.” I wasn’t sure what to think. Was it my mind playing tricks on me?
Then one of our pastors said that God was going bless His people with good sound judgement. Mike caught it in his Spirit and held on to it. Soon after, he felt an urgency to start looking for jobs. I think at one point there were 9 different jobs that he had applied for that he could hear back from at any moment.
It’s kinda fun to dream about where you might get to live next.. but at the same time it’s hard to live the life you have at that moment. Should you spend money on this or save it for the move? Should you plan a vacation when you might be moving that same week? Should you invest in a new friendship when you might have to move just as you’re getting to know that person?
We’ve lived many months.. years in reality.. with things on hold because we might move. I didn’t want to live that way this time. I asked Mike, “Are you sure you really want to do this: you have a nice job, you get to come home for lunch everyday, and I like our life here???” I know. I know. That’s the devil’s line. “Did God really say..?” He kept applying while I worked really hard to ignore the possibility of moving so that I could enjoy where I was.
Mike normally only looks for Air Force jobs because he’s been with them for a long time and it makes the transition easier. One day, he heard God say to look in Huntsville for a job. When he looked, he found a job that he was really interested in and applied. If he had waited one day before obeying God, he would have missed his chance because it was the last day that they were taking applications. He interviewed for the job before our TX trip. We didn’t hear anything for a long time.
I started the summer looking forward to a relaxing time of catching up on school work, painting a couple of rooms in our house, and spending a lot of time in the pool. My plan was to ignore the whole moving thing and enjoy my summer. Mike gave up the Huntsville job and started bugging me with the idea that a job in D.C. was more likely to work out and was I OK with moving to DC?
Do you know what it feels like to have so many things on your heart that if you prayed for them all that you would explode? I was trying to ignore my heart and the possibility of moving, when God opened a little window into my soul and showed me that I really wanted to move to Huntsville and I was not OK with moving to D.C. any longer.
I said, “OK, God.. I wanted to be OK with moving to DC, I was OK at one point, but I am not any more. You made me want to move to Huntsville. Now I want to move to Huntsville. Give me the desire of my heart and quit playing around with me. Are we moving or not? Did you say we were going to move or was that my mind playing tricks on me? I am tired of playing around. You need to show me one way or the other!”
That day Mike was offered the job in Huntsville and all my plans for a nice relaxing summer slipped away. I was shocked. I jumped up and down for joy. I think we both walked around in disbelief for a couple of days. Mike was offered the highest dollar amount that they were legally able to offer him in the promotion, then when he asked they also enrolled him in the home-sale buy-out program which was not originally part of the deal. God is so good!
We gave ourselves 2 weeks to get the house ready to sell. We didn’t want to wait and miss the people who wanted to move in before school started in early August. Our last house took months to sell because we weren’t able to put it on the market until October. The difficulty of having to live in two separate states for three months the last move was still fresh on our mind as it was only a year and a half later.
I wasn’t sure if or not we could actually get the house ready in two weeks. I rented and filled a 10 x 10 storage room with all our books and extra furniture, Mike replaced two sinks and refinished our bath tub, we paid someone to power wash all our moldy concrete, and I painted inside and out: our kitchen cabinets needed a new coat of paint, the sun room was pretty bad, some touching up here and there, and the outside trim was long over due. I am sure I forgetting things. Oh, yeah.. I had to repair the kitchen ceiling. Funny what you discover is unacceptable about your house when you start thinking about selling.
Getting everything done was a stressful but I kept meditating on the verse in Psalm 127 that says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” and kept praying that God would do the work through me and give me peace. I’ve failed at enough things on my own to know to ask for help and rely on God’s strength.
After Mike refinished the tub, I took on the job of caulking it. I hate caulking.. it always takes me forever and turns out so messy, but less messy than when Mike does it. The Lord reminded me of the story of the people he chose to build the temple and how he gave them the wisdom and ability to do all kinds of creative, crafty things. I thought, “Yeah, God, that’s a good story.” Then I prayed, “HELP ME like that.” And you know what? He did! I caulked the whole tub area in about 15 minutes and it looked great. No huge mess. Praise God!!!
All through this time Mike was watching our house value plummet on Zillow.com. I was feeling a little frustrated with him as he became more and more worried about being able to buy a new house after selling our house for almost nothing. I really felt bad for him. I am usually the one that worries.. even though we both believe it’s a sin. Trust God! Don’t be afraid! Don’t look at the world’s report. Listen to God’s!
The week before Mike got the job I was watching Joseph Prince (my new favorite TV preacher) and he was talking about using anointing oil for more than anointing people for ministry. He had spent some time with a church in Asia that anoints everything from their cars to their businesses with oil, asking and claiming God’s blessing, favor and protection over them, and then receives what they ask for… sometimes in miraculous ways.
Joseph said that he was praying about the teaching and decided to try it out by anointing his house to sell and it sold for top dollar in just three days. I thought.. “If we ever move again (ha ha), I am going to try that.” It was one of those God thoughts.
So we prayed and anointed our house with oil and in the midst of the biggest housing crisis ever we received three bids on our house the first week we had it up for sale. The first bid came on the first day it was for sale. We were unable to accept it because we were waiting on government paper work. While we were anxiously waiting, the competition got stiffer and we ended up with a thousand dollars above our asking price. Our realtor said that there was something about our house that the buyers couldn’t resist. We knew it was the anointing of God.
To be continued….
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