Buying the Geddes' house...our version.

This is long, but it's a good story of God's provision!

Back in 2002, Richard and I were living in St. Louis. We had just had Carson, our first baby, in December and were settling in nicely to our life there. I was working from home and Richard had a good job at a national financial firm downtown. In March, his employer announced impending layoffs in his department and we started to get concerned. What would we do if Richard were to be laid off? In considering all the options, we figured that the worst case scenario would be if he was in fact laid off and we couldn’t find another job for him in St. Louis. Our game plan was to move to Poplar Bluff (Christie’s hometown) and Richard would start his own computer company there. The more we thought about it, the sweeter that idea began to sound. We liked the idea so much that even though the layoff process came and went and Richard’s job was left intact, we decided to go anyway. With a new baby in the house, we thought it would be great to live near family and we also knew that being self-employed was something that Richard had dreamed of doing. And being that Poplar Bluff is not the economic capital of the world, the standard of living is such that my salary could provide all that we needed while he built up the business.

We made the move. We felt it had been the right thing to do, but after a few months in Poplar Bluff, we began to feel the charm wearing off. We were having trouble breaking in to any kind of social relationship network….no friends. Richard, being raised in larger cities, was finding small town life a bit narrow in mindset, culture and opportunities. I became pregnant with Avery and I was approaching a point where I knew I wanted to quit working but the business had not grown enough at that point to sustain my quitting. We figured the only answer was to leave.

We began to pursue jobs in the city we most wanted to return to—Jacksonville, FL. Richard grew up in Jacksonville and that is the city where we met in the summer of ’98 so we have very fond memories there. Because of Richard’s previous work history in Jax, we knew that he had some very strong contacts there and began to make calls in pursuit of jobs. There were a lot of openings in several companies…even some companies that Richard had worked for in the past. We figured it was just a matter of time before the offers would start rolling in. We told our family that we would be moving and in the process I think nearly broke their hearts. But, they were ultimately supportive. They wanted us to be happy and were excited about me being full-time with the children. We figured that plane tickets don’t cost that much these days and we’d be able to visit often. We placed our house on the market and we began to pray.

We prayed specifically what has since become a central prayer of our family’s heart: that God would clearly open doors where we were to walk through and close them tightly where we were not so that we could clearly ascertain His will. He answered that prayer.

We listed our house on a Sunday afternoon and by Tuesday afternoon we had accepted an offer. Clearly, God was moving. We continued to pray, believing that a job offer was just around the corner. It had to be…we needed to move out in 4 weeks!

But….no one called for an interview from Jacksonville. Not one single, solitary phone call. It was perplexing to us that this would happen. After all, Richard had so many connections. Our house had sold in whirlwind fashion. We weren’t sure what to make of it. We waited a couple of weeks and still no calls. The only answer we could come up with was that it was clearly a closed door. God, in no way, wanted us to return to Jacksonville. But, we had to move somewhere…our house was sold.

We began considering moving our things into storage and living with Mom and Dad until “the job” came through. But, that didn’t seem quite right. The more we prayed, the more we felt that the closed door to Jacksonville really meant a closed door to leaving at all. We were to stay in Poplar Bluff. So, we called our realtor and began house hunting. We looked at every single house in our price range and nothing was right. Nothing. We still had just a few short weeks until we had to be out of our house. Still praying…

In the midst of all this, we received an email from the prayer network at church. A family in our church (Troy and Karla Geddes) had been called to the mission field and had been assigned to leave in just a few weeks for training. Their house was under contract and that day, the contract had fallen through. The buyers were unable to obtain financing for the house. This left them in a desperate situation to sell their house. Basically, if they didn’t sell the house, they couldn’t go. I don’t remember all of what was said in that email, just that Troy said they needed a “ram in the thicket” (Genesis 22:13) moment and for God to do a miracle.

At that point, we really only knew Troy and Karla as church acquaintances. We had never been to their home and had no idea if it was what we needed or was in our price range. Not wanting to get anyone’s hopes up too quickly, I called our pastor’s wife to see if she knew anything about their house. She told me enough that I knew we should pursue it. That night, Richard called Troy on the phone. The size of the house was right. The location was right (just down the road from church). The price was right. Could it be? Troy basically said, “This is all great that you’re interested, but you’ll have to sell your house first before you can move in and we need to have it sold right away.” Richard said, “Our house is already sold.” Goose bump moment! We drove out that night to look at the house.

All I know is that when I walked in to the house, I felt the peace of God. The house was everything we had hoped to find. Hardwood floors, plenty of bedrooms and square footage, treed lot, out in the country where we could see the stars at night. As we discussed the possibilities, it turned out that the very day that we were set to close on the house we had sold was the exact same day that Troy and Karla had to be in Virginia for training before leaving for the mission field. The same day!!

I truly believe that God held that house under an ultimately failed contract so that realtors would not be showing it for all those weeks. The house was reserved for us. Reserved until the exact perfect moment when the Geddes would need to sell it and the exact perfect moment when we would need to buy it. And, he prepared us by selling our house so swiftly that we were able to be the “ram in the thicket” for our friends…amazing evidence of God’s provision and ability to care for them in the moments before stepping into a new are of service.

I’m writing about all of this for two reasons. One, I want to remember God’s faithfulness to me. And two, testimony is very powerful. I hope it’s an encouragement to others. We thought we were moving to Florida. Instead, we were moving across town! :) How good God is when we submit to his ways.