This is a story of hope. A story of faithfulness. A story of perfect timing and provision from the Only One who can give it exactly when we need it. Too many tears were shed over too many years for me to not share this. For all of those times that I wondered if God really cared and if he heard my prayers, this story is my reminder that He does. And He answers in His own way and in His own perfect time, which is generally not ours.
If you didn’t read the first part of this story, you can catch up here. Our journey to finding our forever home has been anything but normal. But looking back, I now see God in every single step of the way even when I felt like he wasn’t there. He was guiding us and making sure that everything went according to His plan and His timing and not our own timing or plans.
As our story left off, we were leaving church on a sunny December Sunday when one of the parking attendants, who knew we were house hunting, mentioned that the house across the street from him might be going on the market soon. I got the address and a few hours later did a drive-by. It was in some rough shape, but I could see right past that.
To me, it was everything. Just driving by the house and driving through the neighborhood, I knew it was the house for us. It had all the exterior things we wanted - small town, quiet street, nice neighborhood, sidewalks, a big yard with some bordering woods. It checked all of our big boxes.
Our friends who lived across the street had told us that they thought the house was being cleaned out and sold by the family of the older man who had lived there and passed away. My thoughts immediately went to us snagging the house before it even went on the market. But getting a house being sold by family before it even went on the market sounded too good to be true! Seemed too easy. No stress of the real estate market. No rushing to get our current home on the market. Could it really happen?
I decided it was worth the chance. Two days after driving by the house I decided I would write a letter to the family and stick it on the front door. In the letter, I briefly explained our current living situation and then told them all the things we loved about the town, neighborhood & house. I included our family Christmas card because everyone loves a family of little gingers, right? Actually it was more of a plea - see how many kids we have?! We need this house and space more than most people. Kidding. Kinda ;-)
About two days after I stuck the letter on the door, we got a call! It was the week before Christmas. After a brief phone conversation, my husband found out a few things. Most importantly, yes, the house was available and if we were interested we could set up a time after Christmas to walk through it and see it. However, it had unfortunately (or fortunately?) already been privately sold to a contractor who was already in the process of flipping it. So, our hope of getting the house at a lower price directly from the family selling it was no longer a possibility, but it was being remodeled which meant a lot less work for us! We went through the holidays feeling very hopeful and excited about what could be happening in the coming months. I was still cautious and didn't want to get my hopes up completely because of what had happened in the past, but I was excited.
After the New Year, we played phone & email tag with the contractor and his realtor son for a couple of weeks. But then finally on January 17th, about a month after hearing about the house, we set up a time to walk through it with the selling realtor. Our plan was to just have all of the kids sit in the minivan and watch a movie while we walked through the house. When you're tight on childcare, you do what you need to do! But God had other plans, thankfully. The night before, a wonderful & caring family member sent me a message asking how things were going with the house situation. I explained and she offered to come watch all of the kids the next morning so we could look at the house alone and be able to have focused conversation. God's perfect timing.
We arrived at the house before the realtor and took a quick drive around the block. We loved it, all of it. The outside of the house definitely needed some work, but we knew that was probably part of the plan. Once the realtor arrived, we went into the house. It was in the process of being refinished, so it was stripped down to the plywood floors, patchy walls and the kitchen and bathrooms were completely gutted. It looked nothing like a liveable house. But that was ok with us! We wanted a feel for the layout and wanted to know the plans that the contractor had for the house. The realtor was great in telling us what the plan was and he was very open with us about the situation. We even shared our thoughts & ideas for exterior colors and kitchen island plans with him. We walked around the yard and into the woods and all we could do was talk about how much our kids would love it here. At the end of our tour he told us that if we were seriously interested, we were the only ones who knew about the house, so we could work out a timeline and plan to sell our condo and make a move into the house upon its completion happen. It sounded too good to be true. But again, Go's perfect timing.
Two weeks later, on January 30th, our offer was accepted on the house. As part of our offer we had asked that a kitchen island be installed. They weren't sure if they would be able make this happen and gave us a bit of push back, but our amazing realtor fought for us and they accepted it as part of our offer. They made it very clear to us through pictures of previous flip properties what they would be doing to the house and also told us that we would not be allowed to make our own requests with the changes, aside from the island, in the event that we backed out or our financing fell through. We were fine with all of what they proposed, though it was a bit unsettling not having a physical in-person vision before actually purchasing and moving into the home.
After our offer was accepted, as anyone who has ever sold and bought homes knows, life got crazy. The Thursday night that our offer was accepted, our realtor came over to our house and we started making plans to get our condo on the market. We had to work somewhat quickly, because in accepting our offer on the house, they had given us a timeline as to when we had to make everything work out with our own house. If things didn't work out on our end, they would just put the house on the market. We didn't want to have to compete for it. So we set up a plan. Our realtor wanted to come back on Monday morning, just 3 days later, to take pictures of the condo so he could list it that Wednesday. Yikes! Not a whole lot of time! He then wanted to have an Open House the following weekend. So that gave us about 8 days to get the house ready. It was honestly a really hard 8 days that I'd like to never have to repeat. Ever. God's perfect timing?
I had been decluttering and cleaning for a few weeks in hopes that things were going to work out with this house, but then it was time to kick it up a notch. That Saturday we made the decision, under the realtor's guidance to clean out our entire basement playroom and leave only the bare minimum toys. By the grace of God, our next door neighbor was an older single man and he had an empty basement that he said we could use as a storage unit. What a life saver! We moved almost all of the kids toys and gear into his basement to give the illusion that our basement was a large and inviting space. We also continued to clear and clean out other areas of the house.
However, we were also entering into Superbowl and Birthday week in our home! Superbowl Sunday afternoon we had some family over to celebrate the two upcoming 7th & 9th birthdays that week. Trying to keep the house clean, host family, not have many toys and celebrate birthdays... We made it happen! Monday was our son's 7th birthday. We celebrated briefly in the morning, then we had to clear out and leave the house spotless so the realtor could come take pictures. Leaving the house with 4 kids and trying to leave it clean is not an easy task, but we did it. We threw the whole crew in the car, plus the high chair and step stools and a few other items we didn't want seen in pictures and we headed to Kohl's. Isn't that where you would go? Not sure why we went there, I think the birthday boy had some birthday cash to spend. All I remember is the epic 3 year old meltdown and dragging her and baby out of the store as she cried about wanting a princess watch. Oh, the joys!
We got back to our house and the realtor said it looked great, but before the open house in 6 days, we should probably do some touch up painting. We kind of knew this was coming, since we hadn't touched up any paint in the almost 10 years we'd lived there, but we were also dreading it. However, we wanted to maximize our profit when selling our home! But how do you paint when you only have 5 days, you're working and homeschooling 4 of those days and you have 4 kids? You have some really late nights. That's all you can do! Over that week, I'm not sure how, but we (mostly my amazing husband) managed to repaint the entire stairway, living room & kitchen. We were staying up until 2 & 3 am most days. But then, the kids' room also needed to be done and how do you get that done? You call in the help! The Friday before the open house, just 2 days before it was going to happen, I was able to get some childcare help tag teaming for the day so I could be up in their room painting. I wasn't able to move all of the furniture, so I just painted around it. So sorry to the new owners...
The next day, which was the day before the open house, was our oldest daughter's birthday. She was turning 9 and had sent out her birthday invitations for her birthday party, which was to be held at our house, before we had the offer accepted on the house. What timing! There was no way around her party, we didn't want to postpone it, so we just did it! And it actually was perfect. The empty basement ended up being the perfect space to host her party. She had a lot of fun and the clean up was easy enough. And all I could do was relax and enjoy her party. It'll forever be a sweet memory for me. One of the last great things we did in that basement.
The next day was open house day. My husband was scheduled to usher at church that morning and he had said he'd take the older two kids with him to help him and then they'd grab lunch and hang out after until it was clear to go back home. This left me with the littlest two. I was trying to get everything just right in the last hour before I had to be out of the house. Only a few glitches, like realizing the baby gate was still up and I wasn't sure if I had the strength & ability that matched my husband's to get it out. I might have started to panic and go crazy then. Maybe. But thankfully, it worked out. I left the house just in time. Sweating, strapping two little ones into the van and throwing the high chair and step stools into the back. I got into the van and just cried. It had been a long week. I cried a lot. And I had no idea where to go. I decided to go drive by the future home. It was a good idea. It reminded me that all of the hard work would be worth it.
I decided to drive to my parents' house for the day. The night before, we had gotten news that their good friend and neighbor of over 30 years had passed away suddenly. He was like extended family. They celebrated holidays together, vacationed together, lived life together. I had so many wonderful memories with this family over the course of my life. This was a sad time for all of us. I was exhausted but wanted to see my parents and be there for them on this day. We spent the day remembering him and how he had impacted all of our lives. I was so glad to be there. And looking back on it, so glad that I could be there with all of his family later that week to celebrate his life in 2020.
Our open house was a huge success, thanks to our amazing realtor, and of course God's master plan at work. We got four offers that day, two of them were over asking price. We accepted an offer the next day and signed all the necessary contracts. As long as the inspection went well and all of our financing went through, it would all work out according to the proper agreed upon timeline. The buyers wanted a closing date of Monday, March 23rd at 10:00am. We were working towards that. We could make that work in a little over a month's time. And we had no idea what was coming in that next month... God's perfect timing.
The next month is a little fuzzy to be pretty honest. There was a lot of packing, a lot of boxes, late night trips to Aldi to get more free boxes. A lot of email contracts being signed electronically. A lot of hassle and more emails with the mortgage company to fight for a lower rate, and then a lower rate, and then an even lower rate as corona started to happen. Smoke detector inspections during naptimes. Failing inspections and have to get re-inspected. Issues with our attic when the inspector inspected it. And as all of this was happening, our realtor was battling & pressuring the contractors at the new house for us. They were working, slowly, but weren't sure if the house was going to be done by the agreed upon date. The timeline wasn't really looking like it should. Things weren't done that should be, like floors and appliances. We were a bit nervous that the house wasn't going to be ready on the date they said it would be. How could this be God's perfect timing?
During this month, my mind was focused on packing up our life, homeschooling the kids, taking care of an infant (is 15 months considered an infant?) and having a really trying three year old. I was also trying to figure out a plan for where we should live temporarily if the house wasn't ready on the day that it needed to be. And I was trying to figure out childcare for our kids while we went to the closings for each house. Neither set of grandparents were available to help, which made things tricky. But, I finally was able to work out a plan that seemed like it would work. Also during this time, my friend across the street would send me picture updates of the house progress.
And then the world kind of shut down. Ten days before we were supposed to sell our townhouse and buy our new house on March 23rd, the world shut down. And we didn't really know what was happening. Friday, March 13th, all of the schools shut down and sent kids home. No one had any idea what was happening. A new virus was making its way over from China and we didn't know how to handle it other than to just send everyone home. It was craziness. But as a homeschool mom, I felt like it kind of cut me some slack! If no one else was really learning that coming week, it was ok for my kids to have a break too! I could focus on packing and maybe fit some schooling in. God's perfect timing!
That weekend was the 3 year old's birthday. She was going to have a few friends over to celebrate turning 4. We had no idea what was going on and whether we should or shouldn't have a party, so we cancelled it. We celebrated at home with just us and a rainbow cake. This was before the time of birthday car parades. Poor kid's birthday was a month too soon! This was also the first time we did church together as a family over livestream in our living room. We thought it was just for a few weeks and then things would be back to normal.
The next day, my husband was told to work from home and that he'd be working from home until further notice. It was quite rare for him to work from home aside from snow days. Our space was quite small, both bedrooms were used for afternoon naps, the downstairs was used for homeschooling... How were we going to make this work? Well, we really had no choice. It was hopefully our last week in the condo, so we could make it work. Daddy played musical office that week, moving his laptop throughout the day based on the quietest space he could find and working around naps. But that last full week, we were all together. All 6 of us in our little love nest condo. It was actually kind of sweet when I think back on it. We spent our last days in that little home all together. We ate lunch together and took walks together. God's perfect timing.
At this point, we were less than a week away from moving into the new house and it still had not been inspected yet because all of the work had not been completed. We hadn't even set foot in the house since January 17th when we first looked at it when it was gutted and just plywood. Talk about being nervous! But on March 17th, we were able to have the home inspection. Finally! Because my husband was working from home that week, he had a bit of flexibility in his schedule, which made scheduling it and getting it done easier. God's perfect timing.
The inspection went mostly well, but the inspector found a few things that needed to be addressed. It was less than a week from when we were supposed to be moving in and based on the failed timeline prior to this point, we knew extra work likely wasn't going to get done. We decided that we'd live with some of the issues and just ask the sellers for some cash back at closing. They agreed to this, but then it sent the loan underwriters into a tizzy. And it was not set in stone that we'd be able to move in on the day we'd been planning to move in. We weren't sure if it would work out. Where would we go? God's perfect timing?
On Saturday, March 21st, it was scheduled to be our moving day. The world had shut down at this point. We overly sanitized the UHaul. We were all anxious and nervous. The sellers of the house had graciously agreed to let us move our entire townhouse into the garage of the new house so that we didn't have to move twice. We had friends who had volunteered to help us move before the craziness started, and thankfully, they still helped us. The move crew was amazing and will never be forgotten. Thank you friends!!! That day, we moved so much stuff! We were still living in the condo until Monday morning, so we had to keep some things there, but we tried to get the majority of it out. We camped on air mattresses the next two nights and sat around a camping table in the kitchen. It was kind of fun!
That Sunday was a little crazier than we planned though. Moving with 4 young kids is hard, I'll just leave it at that. We seemed to have a strange amount of weird odd & end things that we hadn't moved. I had forgotten to take down pretty much all of the curtain rods and window blinds, among other things. And at this point, we still didn't know if we were going to be able to move into the new house the next day. We did another small load to the new house in the UHaul before it had to be returned, I think? But then thought we could fit all the rest of the things that we needed when we packed up the cars the next day.
We were wrong. I totally misjudged the space we had and the things we still had to take with us. We needed to be out of the condo by 9:30 at the latest and we just barely made it out. The cars were both packed to the brim and when we couldn't fit more there we were contacting our condo neighbors to see if they'd let us put things in their basements and on their patios until we could come back to get it in the coming days. So, with rain in the forecast, we were tarping things on their patios in hopes of being back in the next day or two to get them. Some of the items we were leaving - canned goods. Quite a lot of them, because the world had gotten real weird that week and in a panic I went to Market Basket late one night and stocked up on beans and vegetables and whatever was left, which wasn't much.
So there we were, standing on the front steps of our beloved condo as both relators were showing up. I was exhausted and nervous and sad. We still didn't know if we'd be able to move into our new home later that day. The closing was still up in the air. And I just started sobbing and I couldn't stop. This was the home that I had brought all of my babies home to. It was where they all took their first steps. It was filled to the brim with so many sweet memories. And I was leaving it. We were driving away with nowhere to go. We were about to be homeless during a really really crazy and unreliable time. How could this be God's perfect timing?
Because things had gotten crazy in the past week, all of our childcare and temporary housing plans had fallen through. We had literally nowhere to go. As I drove away from our safe little home, I called my parents, who were in Alabama at the time, and I ugly cried. I couldn't breathe some of the time. (Was I driving or had I pulled over? I honestly don't even remember.) They reassured me and told me that their house (an hour away) was open for us to go to if we needed to. Things were a bit complicated there, but it was a space if we needed it. Was this God's perfect timing?
I then drove to meet my husband in a Panera parking lot where we had agreed to meet our lawyer to sign some things before we could close on our new house hopefully that afternoon. He told us the sale of the condo went through that morning, but due to the corona craziness going on, the buyers were wiring the money rather than being there in person, which just delayed things a bit. The funds were taking longer to make it into the lawyer's account than usual. We needed the funds from the sale to purchase the new house. So all we could do was wait. God's perfect timing?
When we finished there, we decided we needed a little chill out time, so we drove to the cranberry bog hiking nature trail at Patriot Place in Foxboro. It was kind of like my quiet place of rest. I would go there almost weekly with the littlest 3 kids while the oldest was at her drop-off homeschool co-op classes. We would walk and talk and just admire nature. I don't know why we chose to go there on this day, as it was a bit out of the way, but I'm glad we did. The walk reset me and helped me to calm down. We still had no idea what our future held, but we were hopeful.
As we finished our walk in the woods and were getting back into the car, a friend texted me telling me that the governor had just issued a stay-at-home mandate for the state of Massachusetts. What?!?! What did this mean?!?! We didn't actually have a home at this point. How could we stay at home if we didn't have one? My friend said she was going to the store and asked if I needed any food. I honestly couldn't even think straight. I think all that I could get out was peanut butter, jelly, bread, pasta. Those should get us through a few days, right? How was this God's perfect timing?
We then kind of desperately called some friends to see if they would let us hang out with them in their home for the day. They had helped us move just a couple days before, so they said yes. We crashed at their house for the day. The kids played together so well and the baby was able to take a nap and it was just amazing. We finally got a call that afternoon that the closing was still on for that afternoon. Hooray! Our friends agreed to keep all of the kids there so we could go to the closing in Worcester alone. God's perfect plan and timing.
It hadn't snowed much at all that winter, but on that third day of spring, it was snowing quite a bit as we made the hour drive to the Registry of Deeds in Worcester. We got into the large building and met our lawyer and the seller's lawyer's paralegal. There was so much paperwork to sign. We knew it was coming, as we'd done it ten years ago, but it always still comes as a surprises me. We sat down in a cute little sitting area with a padded bench and small table and swivel chairs within sight of the Registry of Deeds.
It was late afternoon as we started. We chatted with our lawyer, as he was actually a friend of our realtor and a really nice guy. The paralegal was also really nice. They told us that the Registry of Deeds was closing at 4:00pm, which was less than 30 minutes away. Looking at the stack of papers in front of us, we knew that there was no way that we'd finish signing everything by that point. The lawyer told us that he still had not received the funds from our morning sale in his account. Things were not looking great for us. It was looking like we were going to continue to be homeless in the midst of a global pandemic. How was this God's perfect timing?
Then my husband asked a question. He asked if it would be ok if we slept in the new house, even though we didn't own it yet. Meaning, that if the house burned down to the ground in the middle of the night with us and all of our belongings in it, would we be ok and covered by insurance? To which the selling attorney's paralegal pretended to block her ears and said, "Lalalalala, what did you say?" And our own lawyer said, "Well, I can't legally advise you to do that, but you are insured." So that was our answer. All that we needed to hear ;-)
We finished signing all of the necessary paperwork after the Registry of Deeds closed for the day. Before they closed, they told us the next day would be the last day their doors were open to the public before they closed down to only virtual and appointment only. We had gotten in just in time, kind of. Our lawyer told us that because the paperwork was all signed, as soon as he received the money, the sale would be complete and it would go on record at the Registry of Deeds the next morning, hopefully, right before they would shut down. God's perfect timing!
We left there to drive back to get our kids, but still didn't own a home to take them to. What a strange feeling. Our friends made us a pasta dinner and had taken great care of the kids, we were so thankful for them and their hospitality towards us. After eating, we decided we would go to sleep in our new home, to be like squatters, since we didn't actually own it yet. We got all the kids ready and packed up all that we had unpacked and made the 40 minute drive to our new home, now in the rain.
I remember pulling in the driveway at 8:05 pm on March 23rd. It was dark and this was when we were usually getting all of the kids into bed, never mind just arriving and still needing to get set up! We still didn't own the house, but all of our earthly possessions were in it and we were about to sleep in it. we knew where the realtors had been keeping the keys, so that was our way in. Shady? Maybe. We got the kids air mattresses set up in one bedroom and put the pack 'n play in the master bedroom closet, where it would be dark, since there were no curtains on any of the windows. We then set up our air mattress. We'd be camping in our new home for the first night!
After we got the kids in bed, we heard from our lawyer that he had received the money from our sale and that the purchase of our new home would go on record at the Registry of Deeds first thing the next morning. Praise God! We were home. God had worked it all in his perfect timing.
The next day, we all started slowly moving some boxes from the garage into the house to begin the unpacking process. That afternoon we had more friends from church coming to help us move the big furniture items into the house. Thank goodness for that move team! They helped us get the house set up so much faster than we ever could have on our own. God was perfect in his timing.
And the rest of the story is just our life now, for the past 9 months. I know that for many people, life has not been easy and it's been quite hard. And I do feel for so many who are in those positions. But that's not really our story. Yes, we've definitely had our hard times and struggles this year, but overall, our year has been quite the opposite. I honestly have to say that in moving into this house when we did, our life got better and easier in many ways. In the new house we have more rooms and more space. We can spread out when we need to. We can have more quiet spaces. Daddy can have a quiet home office, which he's used the entire time we've been here. We have our own yard. We have a quiet neighborhood and sidewalks for many walks.
So, yes, 2020 was a year that was hard in many ways. We faced a lot of hard, but a lot of our hard was on the front end of 2020, before most others faced their hard. For us, 2020 was met with a lot of joy. It was when my faith was renewed and strengthened in many ways because I saw God's hand at work and his faithfulness and his perfect timing. For years, I wanted a single family home and God knew that. But he also knew exactly when we would need it, and he provided it to us at just the right time.
So our story is one where we've seen God being faithful and providing for us. There are many other details that I purposely left out of this story, but as we look back, it's amazing to see how it has all worked out and how we see that we were placed here at the right time for a reason. God has a plan and I can't wait to see how he fulfills it in the years that we live in this house.
