Spinster House

I have often made the comparison of selling a house to courtship. You gussy it up with paint and elbow grease, then you put it out there on the market hoping for the phone to ring. When a walk through comes, it's like the first date. Sometimes you do all that cleaning/prettying up and they stand you up. Sometimes they show up early when you're not ready. And then you wonder if they liked you enough to call back for a second date. Well, our house is becoming an old maid. Nobody wants a second date much less an engagement. In fact, we haven't had a call in three weeks. I find myself cleaning things up in expectation and I keep thinking "wishful makeup-ing" (Pretty in Pink reference for the John Hughes fans out there). I can find no logical reason for our loser status. Our house is one of the newest in the neighborhood, and one of the cheapest per square foot. Sometimes it feels like God has made it invisible.

I find myself constantly asking Him why?? What is His purpose? I like having things figured out in my head. I have a very hard time going day by day trying to discern His will when it is completely unclear. God seems to know that about me, and I think He likes me to be uncomfortable sometimes. Don't you find that is when you are on your knees and talking to God the most? If nothing else, I will say that my walk with Christ has changed in the last couple months. I've gone from fasting from chocolate or soda or whatever to being on my knees and crying in prayer to a more consistent morning and night devotion and prayer. I find my priorities and personality changing a little too. I've never heard a booming God voice in my head telling me what I was supposed to do, and I've often wondered if that really happens (or if I just can't hear it). Even when I was dating my husband and I knew I was supposed to marry him, there was no voice, I just knew.

I'm reminded of a few years ago when my husband was working and living hunreds of miles away and I was taking care of two toddlers with a house up for sale all by my lonesome. It went on for four months, and we kept praying for wisdom, clarity, guidance. What were we supposed to be doing? But I couldn't hear anything. Don't get me wrong, I felt peace when I really needed it, but He never gave us a neon sign or an answer of why. Then two months after hubby came home and we decided to stay put, everything came together perfectly... for a totally different job, different state. It made sense then even though it hadn't when we were going through it.

Oh yes, God is stretching me. I'm hoping that it will all lead to our house selling, and us finding the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood (closer to everything). But either way, I think I've matured a little more this year. I don't want to be a waiter, waiting for the house to sell, waiting for a referral, waiting to pick her up, waiting, waiting, waiting... Everyday must count because we don't know what tomorrow holds. Sorry to get all schmaltzy and philosophical, but I needed to just talk that out. I know it's just a house, but it's gotten to the point of frustration.