Quick recap – we were losing the house & almost broke, but we had a place to go and a great realtor who we trusted. However, we had no showings, a poor housing market, and a bad economy. But the blessings God had in store for us were just beginning.
One day in late March, a discussion about tithing broke out on my Facebook Debate Club group. While defending the practice to a young man who thought it was all a scam, it dawned on me. When was the last time we’d tithed? See, we weren’t physically attending church due to various sensory issues and work schedules. However, we continued to “attend” by watching sermons and tithing online. We’d usually tithe a few weeks at a time, so I asked Tony to check. Turned out, we were overdue. Tony logged in and paid up our tithe right away.
About a week later, we got the phone call we’d been waiting for! Finally, a showing! Considering the house down the road hadn’t had a showing in months, this was great news! I didn’t want to get too excited, but still, a showing! Two days later, we had three showings in one day. That night, we had three offers! It was a miracle!
The best offer was for a few thousand more than the appraised price of the house, but the buyer wanted us to pay closing costs. We weren’t financially able to do so, despite the hefty tax refund that had just come through. So, at the advice of our realtor, we sent a counter-offer. The buyer would get the house at the appraised cost & pay closing. The total came out to about a thousand more than the buyer had offered. Then we waited.
The buyer accepted our offer. Now we just had to wait for our lender to approve the sale, and find out if they would come after us for the $80,000 difference. We had been informed that our particular lender had a reputation for demanding repayment of the difference. This was concerning because there was no way we’d be able to help mom with our part of the bills, pay off the difference, and save anything to try to get back on our feet. The guys at Advance Short Sale Service warned us that they’d only had one other client with our lender who’d had the difference forgiven. The most they’d been able to get from our lender was 50% off the difference. So while we prayed for the best, we prepared for the worst, and waited to hear from the lender.
The buyer had asked to close in just two weeks. We still hadn’t heard from the lender, but time was running out to get a truck rented. So we once again stepped out on faith. We rented the truck and made final preparations to move to mom’s house on the second Friday in May. God had already poured out so many blessings on me and my family, but He wasn’t done yet.
Stay tuned for Part 4.
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