Albert Einstein

I just want everyone to know that I did one of those online IQ tests today and I scored a 141. Yes, as you all suspected, I am a genius. You can stop wondering now. It is official, I am the next Albert Einstein. Don't let my mediocre blogs and comments fool you. I try to water down my writing so that it is understandable for the average person.

House Update

Not much has happened since our offer was accepted. We did have the house inspected and found a few problems that we have asked to be fixed. We are still very excited about our new home. We hope everything goes well. We will not be closing until the end of May because the owner wants her daughters to finish the school year before they move. They will be out of the house on June 13th. We plan on having the carpets, kitchen & bathrooms cleaned and we are hoping to strip off some wall paper and paint some walls before we move in. Here is the bad news. There is no A/C in the house so moving in the middle of the summer will be really hot...again. We always seem to move when it is really hot. I am thankful that my parents (or at least my mother) will be able to help us move. If anyone else is nearby and wants to help out, we'd love to have you!

It is so strange to see this house and think that it will soon be ours, Lord willing.

What a World

My grandmother sent me a message written by Chuck Colson regarding a new law in the UK. The law forbids anyone in schools to teach that a certain Christian belief is right--even private Christian schools. I am not surprised, but I am sad and even a little scared. The Bible teaches about the last days and they sound frightening to me. I replied to my grandmother that I worry about what kind of a world my children are going to grow up in. Sometimes I wonder if I should even have anymore. I don't want to live in a world where I am constantly persecuted because of a Christian and I certainly don't want my children to have to suffer through that. I know there is terrible persecution many places in the world today, and has been since the beginning. The "western world" has been somewhat of a safe place for believers so far, but that seems to be changing fast. It almost seems more humane to not bring more children into the world, but to adopt those who are already here and teach them Truth.

But children are a gift from God (biological or adopted). I know that God has blessed me by giving me a healthy and happy daughter. If He blesses me with more biological children, I will thank Him and work hard to raise them to glorify Him. My grandmother reminded me that "the rewards outweigh the trouble". That really is true. There is no comparison. The trouble that we or our children will go through because of Him is nothing compared to the reward in heaven. The trials in this life are only temporary. The rewards are eternal.

How Does it End?

Isn't it amazing how God works? Sometimes things don't go the way we want them to, but then something even better happens. Here is a story about just such a thing...

A while ago I wrote about a nice house that we made an offer on. John especially was excited about it. It seemed to have everything we wanted. Their counter offer was too high for us and within 2 business days there was another contract on it. It was disappointing.

We decided to look at buying land instead. We saw a few plots, but none were what we wanted. John found one listed online and called about it, but found that the land had been sold months ago--the website had not been updated. The man he spoke with had a house for sale that was in our price range and was the size we wanted as well. We were very interested, but before we could tour the inside there was a contract on it. Another blessing came our way almost immediately. The same man knew a woman at his church who was facing foreclosure. She needed to sell her house fast and was willing to sell it for the payoff amount. We checked it out and it was WONDERFUL. A quiet new neighborhood, on a cul-de-sac, fenced yard, lots of room and even a new in ground swimming pool. AMAZING! Although it was on the high end of what we could afford, we went for it. We were working hard on our end, but didn't feel like there was much effort on the sellers end. We began to get a little frustrated. John started looking at houses online again and found one identical to this one (minus the pool) and it was just down the street. The best part about it was that it was over 20K less. We pleaded with them to let us see it that day (Monday March 5th) and they finally allowed it. We saw it and went directly to our agents office to make an offer. Yesterday evening we got a call that our offer had been accepted. YIPPEEE! We are a little closer to becoming homeowners now. It is a nice feeling. We won't close until May because the family doesn't want to move during the school year. Please pray that everything goes smoothly. We are really excited about this house. The price is such that we can live off of John's salary. It is amazing that we have that opportunity while having a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Please pray for the woman who's house is facing foreclosure too.

But most of all, PRAISE GOD!

Gingerbread House

This has been a very intense time of house hunting for us. There have been several that we thought were "the one", but so far, none have turned out that way. We are currently pursuing a house that is soon to be under foreclosure. There are many great things about this house, but it is a lot of work to actually get the house. Even though the owner is facing foreclosure, we feel like we are the only ones eager to "get the ball rolling". It is a little frustrating for us. The house is a wonderful investment, but it is on the high end for us, and may get higher if we have to pay fees related to the foreclosure. The longer we wait to get things moving on this house, the less appealing it is to us. There is another house on the same street that we just found. It is a lot less money and probably won't bring along as many complications.

We are still trusting in God to lead us to the best house for us. We are really ready for this process to be over. I am ready to have my husband back. Maybe we should just buy a gingerbread house and be finished with it!