I can’t tell this story without telling the story about our home. It is part of the miracle. We just bought our first house in September 2011. We have always lived in parsonages until we came to this church. The church had gotten out of the parsonage business when the last pastor bought his own home and retired. So, we had to find a place to rent when we got here almost four years ago. It was in the country, and I’m a city girl, so I struggled being out away from everything for those years. I made it work, and was grateful for shelter, and made the place a nice home, however, I was always feeling a little down. Nothing seemed settled for some reason.
We had thought about moving, but in our denomination, pastors are reassigned too often to think about it. Besides that, we just didn’t think we could afford to own a home of our own. The church has always taken very good care of us, but it is not a business. It is a group of people giving to the Lord to make the church run. We are servants of the Lord, and though, the Lord does want us to prosper, He is not pleased with materialistic attitudes in His children. And we are not materialistic. We would give it all up, and have, if the Lord asked us to.
Why is it so surprising when the Lord works things out?
We decided to dream a bit and look at houses. We look around anyway, though we weren’t sure if anything would come of it. The houses the realtor took us to, that were within our pre-approved budgeted amount, were run down or not in a good location, etc. Something major was wrong with every house or it just didn’t feel good. After a while, it just got too depressing to keep looking, so I told the realtor that I had to take a break from it all.
She called the next day and said, “I’m not going to let you get away with that. I have a couple more houses for you to look at today that just came on the market”. I didn’t want to let her down so I met her. She took me to a street with a cul-de-sac, which I had always wanted to live on. There was park at the end of the circle, three houses from us. We turned into the drive way and the house looked very well kept. We walked inside the front door and I looked in the kitchen and said, “This is it!!!!
I have to call Dave and have him meet us here!”. She said, “Don’t you want to see the rest of the house?” I said I knew this was the one. However, we did look at the rest of the house and it was just as wonderful as the kitchen. There were lots and lots of windows. She talked me into looking at the other house she had in mind. Hesitantly, we drove to the house, took one look at the outside and I knew it was not it. She said she would go inside by herself, just to double check that it was not a good one. She came out and said, “Nope! Let’s call Dave and go back to the house”.
Dave fell in love with it too. And when we found out that it was even less than some of the other houses we looked at we knew it was a gift from the Lord. Now at this point we still didn’t know how the finances were going to work out, but believed the Lord would show us what to do. He did and we moved in, like I said earlier, in September 2011 into our very own house.
We were overjoyed. It was move-in ready. A little painting, cleaning carpets and we were in. We still look around and can’t believe how God has blessed us.
We dedicated the house to the Lord and said He could use it for His glory and however He wanted to. Well, as you can see, November He started using it and we give Him the glory. At one point all four bedrooms were full. Praise the Lord we had the bedrooms to fill.
The street we now live on is like living in the 50s where neighbors actually meet each other and when we moved in most of the neighbors brought homemade bread, cookies, flowers, and different welcome gifts the first week we were here. How unusual was that?!
Of course, it didn’t take long for the neighbors to know about Rob and Beth and Robbie. One night the couple and their baby across the street came over one night with baby items their child had outgrown recently. Then the next day the woman down the street brought other items for the baby. It just seemed like everyone who had come in contact with this couple and their situation got involved somehow. The Lord, again was blessing this family.
To break up the story a bit, I thought I would show you some pictures of precious Robbie.
(top left: my grandaughter holding Robbie, top right and bottom left: me holding Robbie, bottom right: my daughter and grandaughter and me again, holding Robbie. The day after Christmas.
This story continues on Day 8. Just three more days and the story will conclude. Thank you for hanging in there!
Love, Pat
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