Dwell in Me

Seeking God in the Every Day

Tag Archives: selling house


by Leave a comment

Didn’t I Already Learn This?

I’m constantly amazed at my ability to falter in my faith.

Our house is officially under contract; we did come to terms agreeable for both us and the people who are planning to move into our house, and our closing date is set for September 29. In case anyone is wondering, yes, that is in 25 days. And no, we don’t have a house to move into (or even one we are seriously interested in looking at in the neighborhood in which we’d like to live).

We'll be saying goodbye to our little house

Throughout this process, I’ve been great at talking the talk. Whenever a person came to see the house and didn’t like it, it was easy to assure my husband that God had the perfect buyers for our house and that he knows where we are going. But now it’s time to walk by faith and trust that God has a place for us, and I find myself faltering.

I wonder why we put our house on the market in the first place (even though we had plenty of reasons, chief among them DH’s very long commute).

I find myself secretly (or not so secretly) hoping our buyers will decide to exercise their option and break the contract. We could sell the house at a more convenient time.

I worry: how are we going to get everything packed and moved? I have more than enough work to do for my classes with nothing else added on. DH is preparing to take the first CFA exam this winter and keeps reminding me that he’s terribly behind in his study timeline. Oh, and have I mentioned that I am really, really, really (and that’s not enough emphasis–seriously!) terrible at packing and moving? So, we will hire someone, but that means we need to find someone.

Did I also mention that DH is in a wedding in New Mexico the weekend before our closing date? One which we are both planning to attend (and for which I still don’t have a plane ticket.) Don’t worry: we’ll also be out of town the two weekends preceding that one. As in, this weekend is the only one that has us in town between now and closing.

And when DH’s car broke down on Tuesday morning, bringing the “someday we need to replace your car” to a more urgent “what car are we going to buy and how long can we hold out before we have to do it?”–well, I think that was a final straw for me. And I’m sorry to say I spent most of yesterday succumbing to fear and worry and unable to focus on my studies.

I like to think I was doing okay with the whole thing. That I was trusting God and expecting everything to go the way it should. But I think maybe it hadn’t all sunk in yet. I think I was in denial. And I was quite happy there.

The ridiculous thing about this whole situation is that I thought I had learned these lessons. In fact, just a few months ago, on this blog, I was asking God if I had learned enough yet. And here, too.  I was ready to move on from not being pregnant. So ready.

And here I am, still learning the same things: Trust me. Don’t fear. Don’t worry. Wait on me.

But my gracious God has changed my circumstances. Instead of battling infertility today, I’m dealing with doubts and questions over where we will live and how things can be done in the time that we have. And how our finances are going to work between moving out and (hopefully) moving in and buying a car and paying for movers and flying to New Mexico
and . . .

While I let myself get hung up on the circumstance, on the day-to-day, and on the things about which I have limited or no control, I haven’t been trusting like I should. Yet God is good. And he is calmly whispering to my heart: I’m still here. I’m still trustworthy. I still know. Remember the battles you’ve been through before? I carried you through those, and I’ll carry you through this.

So I’m glad for the wake-up call. This isn’t really a trial: it’s an opportunity to put my faith in practice. I’ve not done so well the past week, but by the grace of God, I can do better today. And tomorrow.


by 4 Comments

Changing Spaces

Strange things are happening here.

DH got promoted a few weeks ago, though he’s still working his shift schedule until the new guy is trained and ready to replace him. At this point, that means at least one more night shift.

But this week is a normal M-F work week. So DH is spending his time with the new department and doing the new hours.

In his current position (not the promotion), he was working 6 a.m. – 6 p.m. (or vice versa on nights), Wed.-Tues. most weeks, and 6 a.m. – 3 p.m. one week out of five. The latter would be the normal working hours (maybe to 4) for him if he’d stayed in the department he was in. At those hours, he expects a 30-40 minute commute. Which is long, but doable.

In the new position he’s in a new department. So he’s working 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. About the worst possible time to go to work in Houston. His morning commute has increased to at least 50 minutes, and the trip home takes even longer. He’s spending about two hours per day in the car.

I think I posted before about things we did because we expected a large family. Moving to Katy was definitely one of them. It has great schools–and we live right behind the elementary school where our kids would theoretically attend classes. It has nearby parks and pools. And it’s a really family-oriented town.

But maybe we don’t want to be so family oriented right now.

DH has been hinting for a while that he’d like to live downtown instead. I saw that as something we would do if infertility treatments don’t work and we’re not likely to have children, or if we won’t have more than one or two kids. We did, after all, build our own house. Which we moved into last June (yes, approximately one month before we received our infertility diagnosis).

We’re all moved in. We ordered cabinets to install in our study (planning to put book shelves above to the ceiling and make it a little library). We just bought new bedroom curtains and bedding to finally get our room done. The only room that hasn’t been finished (or isn’t in the process of being finished) is the nursery–which is empty save for the books that are waiting for the aforementioned bookshelves.

When we moved to our house, we expected to be here for a long time. Long enough, at least, for our kids to go to the school right behind us. Long enough that we would join the church and be able to really get involved for the long term. A long time.

So, of course, if makes perfect sense that today I’m going with DH to look at fancy downtown apartments. And that I expect to spend my Memorial Day weekend getting our house cleaned up so we can put it on the market. It makes perfect sense, right?

It’s not just the commute, though I guess that was the final straw. It’s because we don’t have kids yet. We don’t fit the family-oriented culture. And when we go out, we go downtown. There isn’t really anything here outside of going out to dinner. And while I’ve made some friends and connections here, DH’s co-workers are mostly downtown and neither of us really feels like we have a solid group here.

Yes, we have friends we’ll want to visit. But we’re moving 30 minutes away, not to a different state or anything.

This has been a long time coming. And while I’m not looking forward to renting again, or to leaving my beautiful house, it is a good time to sell. And since the house is pretty new, we don’t have too much work to do to get it ready. We might even make some money on the house, and it will definitely free up the capital we invested, which wouldn’t hurt to have in the bank to help pay for treatments.

And we’ve had amazing support from DH’s mom. When we told her we were thinking about moving, she said that she and DH’s dad had just been talking about how they didn’t think Katy was really the right place for us right now. It was a very nice confirmation that maybe we’re doing the right thing.

But I hate moving. I wish I could wake up and just already be moved. I am a terrible mover. And I’ve never sold a house before, so I’m nervous about that. Thanks in advance for any prayers you can send our way–both that we’re doing the right thing, and for things to go smoothly. I really appreciate it.