Movin' On Up...in Faith

Kim at the Internet Café Chat has asked the following question…

“Tell about one time in the past 5 years where you took a HUGE Step of Faith in your journey with the Lord. What was the outcome?”

My husband (DH) was working for a company in South Texas. When they were bought out in 2002, the company merged with several others and moved to North Georgia. We stayed in Texas.

And struggled financially.

DH was attempting to run his own business in a place of economic stagnancy. Some businesses thrive there, but what we were doing is considered to be “a dime a dozen.” It seemed everyone and their Chihuahua was doing what we were doing. Makes it hard to corner a market like that.

One day DH received a phone call from his best friend and co-worker, who was in Georgia. We could use your help, he would say.

I had never lived outside the great State of Texas in my life. DH had for a short time lived in Nebraska, but leaving our home state was something he said he never cared to do again.

Fast forward a few months…to my amazement, DH accepts the job in Georgia and we are moving in about two weeks. All of our family is in Texas, all of our history, all of our roots. All our Ex-es live in Texas, too. (Couldn’t resist!...I just threw that in there for any of you George Strait fans!)

So we are now moving to a no-man’s land, as far as I was concerned. What would it be like? Where would we live? Where would we go to church? Who would our kids meet?

I began looking on the Internet for a rent house. It was pretty exciting, except I quickly started to realize that the rent we were going to have to pay was almost triple what we were used to! I started to whine to DH, “What are we going to do? How are we going to afford to live in such an expensive place? What will we do if we can’t make it?” The company was paying for moving us there; I was quite sure they wouldn’t pay to move us back if we chickened-out.

As I’m fretting about the cost of housing in this foreign place, my DH says to me, “Don’t worry about it; we don’t know what God has for us over there. There may be some old farmhouse someone is willing to let us rent for next to nothing.” Okay, okay.

FF again to a week or so later. DH was already there working, living in an extended-stay hotel. The company flies me in for a four-day weekend to find a house. Did you register that? Four days…to find a place to live. It’s a good thing I didn’t feel any pressure.

I hope you can read sarcasm.

I had done my homework and had several prospects lined up to contact as soon as we got there. I flew in on a Thursday afternoon, which gave me some time to get Friday morning’s contacts lined up. After I did that, DH took me driving around to see the areas he had been scoping out since he got there.

It’s another good thing that I had that afternoon to drive around with him and then get over my motion sickness. I was used to living on top of a pancake; this place was like living on top of a bowl of ice cream.

I think it may be time for lunch. I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, so driving around in this place took some getting used to.

First thing Friday morning, we met with a realtor about a cute little townhouse. Keyword here is little. It was very nice, and sort of in our price range, but very little. We were used to having two acres all to ourselves; I could have mowed this place in about 15 minutes. Literally.

So as we were wrapping things up with the realtor and telling her what we were used to, she says to us, “You know, I got a call from my Broker this morning, and he told me of an old farmhouse on two acres that is for rent. It’s just outside (insert the very town we were hoping to move to!) and you’ll be the first to see it; it’s not even technically on the market yet!” When we inquired, our rent was only going to be twice what we were used to paying (but so was our income!)

YOU should have seen my DH…he was bouncing up and down on his toes doing the happy dance, “Can we go see it? Can we go see it? Pleeeeese??” Okay, well, I may be embellishing that a little bit, but that’s a very close rendition!

The realtor was not free to take us, but she gave us directions so we could go look at it ourselves.
When we drove up to the house, both of us were in awe. The property was and is still the prettiest we’ve seen in Georgia. The house is very old, modest, and has much character…just exactly what we like. The oldest part of the house (as it’s been added onto several times over the years) was built in 1865, and was a post office during the Civil War! How could we have dreamed for more?

Front of our house

Some of our back view