The move- Part 8 of my testimony

Married life was wonderful. I had started working part-time hours and loved the extra time to do what I wanted at home. We started remodeling the basement and enjoyed just being together.

In February, I found a piece of land for sale in the paper in the area that we were interested in. Keith and I thought that it would be a few years before we would move, but I called on it just for fun. After talking with the realtor, I realized that this particular one wouldn't fit what we wanted, but he described another property that really did. After talking with Keith, we decided to make a whirlwind trip up to see it. (You see, I had to sing at a wedding on Saturday afternoon and we were going to drive up to see the land on Saturday morning.) So we got up at 3:00 AM to drive the 6 or so hours up there. It was a fun trip, but we knew that we had entered the "boondocks" about half-way there! We had never been to the Red River Valley before. Fields stretched forever it seemed and it was beautiful in its own way. When we got there, I have to say that it was frightfully cold. The wind blew hard on that flat terrain, but we became attached very quickly to the ~160 acre old farmstead with a large lawn of mature oak trees, outbuildings, and river. We were on a tight time schedule, so we didn't get as good a look at the place as we would have liked and the realtor told us that there was already an offer on it but it had contingencies. So, if we had the money, we could get it first. We didn't want to make a rash decision, yet really liked the property. We drove home talking over the possibilities and thinking of our dreams.

I wasn't kidding when I said that we were on a tight schedule. We drove right to the wedding and we were none too early. I went in and Keith waited for me in the car with our new puppy that we had brought along for the trip.

After talking over our dilema, a friend told Keith, "God leads, Satan pushes". That advice has stayed with us ever since. We did feel pushed to make a quick decision as there was already an offer on the place, yet there wasn't peace about it. So, Keith decided that we would let it go and if we were supposed to have the property, the other offer would fall through and it would be available later.

In April, I had an opportunity to direct a choir from our church for an Easter "concert". I had never done anything like it before, and was stressful, but tons of fun too. While practicing after church on Sundays, Keith would wait for me. One day he got a paper and was just thumbing through it. Sure enough, the property was in the paper. It had never been advertised before. We called on it and it indeed was the same property and the other offer had fallen through! We made an appointment the next weekend to go up and see it again.

This time, Keith's parents came with us and we stopped half-way up at a motel on Friday to break up the trip. We arrived "up north" early on Saturday and Keith wanted to stop in at a few dealerships to scout out any potential jobs as an auto mechanic. The first place we stopped, he was offered a job. Keith was a bit in shock and we were all amazed. We got to the property and looked and looked and looked at EVERYHING we could think of. We saw many of the imperfections of the place, yet we also saw the possibilities. When Keith asked me if I thought we should make an offer, I said yes, but inside I wanted a lightning rod sign from God that this was His will and not an emotional decision. So I made a silent request to God for a rainbow so that I would know that this was from Him.

Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck all the way to the restaurant where we were going to sit down with the realtors to make the offer. My neck got sore looking out the window for a rainbow. We got to the restaurant and I looked throughout the sky until I went through the door. We got to our table and sat down. I couldn't sit down for more than 30 seconds. I excused myself and went back outside. While looking into the sky again, I felt God tell me that I knew that He was directing us in this direction and I needed to rest in that and not look for confirmation after confirmation. I went back inside and sat down with more peace.

After the paperwork was completed, we drove home, not sure what was going to happen. It's an interesting spot to be in. You start allowing dreams to develop, yet don't want to for fear that hopes will be dashed and the offer denied.

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long. Sunday afternoon, we got the call from the realtor that our offer was accepted. Keith was talking to him. I had deduced from Keith's side of the conversation that we had a green light. While he was just finishing the phone call, I looked out the window and there was a small, but distinctive rainbow!! I was estatic! God was so good to give me that gift even though He had asked me to take a step of faith first. We drove over to Keith's brother's house to tell them what had transpired, but before I could tell about the rainbow, Keith's sister-in-law said, "I saw the most BEAUTIFUL rainbow while driving home. Did you see it?" I surely had...

Closing on the property was on May 1st. But before this, we found out that I was pregnant. We were so excited. I ate quite a few crackers to get me through those months. We had permission to begin moving things up to the new house before the closing as the house was empty. Keith remembers those drives up with boxes with such fondness. I remember nausea. We set up our extra bed in the large kitchen because we wanted to do some work in the other rooms. There we were, having our weekend get-away at our soon-to-be home, watching a movie on a small, portable TV and lying in our bed in the kitchen.

We made multiple trips up to the property, but I remember one in particular... We had bought an older one ton suburban that could "haul anything" according to Keith. As we were on the freeway after a couple hours of driving, we kept smelling gasoline. I mentioned it a few times, but Keith didn't act concerned. I thought, "He's the mechanic. He knows, so I better just let it go." Every once in awhile he would "think outloud" saying what the smell could be from. I started to relax, but unbeknownst to me, Keith was getting more concerned. All of a sudden, he pulled over onto a litte side road and up into a field. He jumped out and crawled under the suburban. The previous owners had cut off the tailpipe and the end was directly under the gas tank. Keith has very tough hands, full of callouses, but this thing was extremely hot and he couldn't get near it. He had to take a pry bar to bend the pipe away from the gas tank. He could hear liquid gurgling. We had a full tank of boiling gasoline! The gas was so hot that the vapors caused a relief valve in the gas cap to open...hence the smell of gas. I have come to learn that hot liquid gasoline is not as explosive as gasoline vapor and it was good that we had a full tank of liquid gas so that there wasn't as much room for gasoline vapor, but we were both full of thankfulness to the Lord that we didn't blow up on the freeway that day...because we easily could have.

Now the question was, should we try to sell our house in the "Cities" ourselves or use a realtor? We decided to use a realtor. We contacted one and the momentum started immediately. I mentioned that we were remdeling the basement before. Now we were in high gear. The realtor was very helpful in showing us what things to focus on and what to not worry about. I worked like crazy while home alone and Keith and I worked like crazy in the evenings. The realtor came to fill out paperwork to officially list our home. She said to me, "Things may move faster than you think you are ready for, but I think that you ARE ready." As we were signing papers, she said that she had had a call that day and the people were looking for a house just like ours. She described our property and they had wanted to come that evening, but she told them that she couldn't do that as she was meeting with us that evening to officially sign papers to get it listed. She did give them our address so that they could look at it from the road.

Sure enough, sitting from our dining room table we could see the road. We saw a vehicle drive S-L-O-W-L-Y past, turn around, and drive S-L-O-W-L-Y back...and then drive into our driveway! My heart started pounding. The realtor talked to them at the door and then she called up to me, "Remember what I said about being ready?"

"Yeah"

"How about a showing tomorrow morning?"

What could I say but, "yep".

After the prospective buyers left, we all looked at each other and couldn't believe that these people were quite so bold.

After the realtor left, Keith and I worked on adrenaline. We still had masking tape on baseboards where we had been doing some last-minute painting and sheetrock dust was everywhere it seemed. We did the best we could and went to bed physically and emotionally exhausted.

The next morning, we both left for work. Keith got a call at work around 10:30. Our house had sold in 2 hours for the asking price!

Now, the ball really started rolling. We had a date at which we had to be out of our home. We put in our notices at work and began packing with purpose and frenzy.

The closing for selling our home in the "Cities" was in June. When you go into a closing, you never quite know what the ending dollar amounts are going to be because of realtor's fees, fees that the seller is responsible for, etc. So...we didn't know exactly how it would all turn out. After all the paperwork was signed and checks were in hand, we realized that we were within $50 of the cost of the property "up north".

We moved up to our new home after being married for 7 months, awaiting our first child and debt free. God WAS and IS SO GOOD!

Whenever we question whether God wanted us to move, we think of His miraculous ways. Just as God directed in the Old Testament to make altars of stone to remember what He had done, we also want to remember and never forget His direction and provision for us. Writing this is part of our stone altar of remembrance.