Answered Prayers and Miracles.

Our God is a God of miracles and He is faithful to answer us when we seek Him in prayer.

Sometimes the answer to our prayers is "no". Y'all, I have wrestled more with God's "no"s than a two year old that wants a cookie. 

God: "No."

Me: "But whyyyyyyyy? I need this! What am I going to do? Please, please, pleaseeeeeeee...". 

Yup, I can be REALLY mature when God's will doesn't line up with my own.

We have been told "no" to some pretty big prayer requests over the years and we have had to reconcile the disappointment we felt with the truth that God's will and plan are perfect. His plans for us are far BETTER than our plans for ourselves. That doesn't make "no" easy, but it gives us hope and the faith to trust Him, even when we can't see a way.

That was where we were at with the house. We were fighting the fear of the unknown to be able to put our trust in God's plan.

We didn't know what we were going to do when we sold the house. We did know a few things.

1. The house needs w.o.r.k. to be ready to sell. Work costs money. We don't currently have the funds in the bank and we have no idea where we would get the funding we need to make the necessary repairs. Which in turn take time. Time we didn't have.

2. When we sat down and went over the numbers, what we owe vs. what we would likely sell the house for, there wasn't much if anything left to put in the bank when it was all said and done. We would probably be walking away with very little cash if any.

3. Rent is twice the cost of our mortgage payment which we cannot afford on our budget. So, given all of the information available to us, that would leave us squarely in the "homeless" category.

So what do we do? 

We trust.

Seven letters.

We trust.

And... We pray.

We have been praying for the last year that 2017 would be the year we would be "debt free". It is our dream to be able to free up our income to be used to bless others. We want to be able to help those in need. We want to support missions. We want to use what God has enabled us to earn to show others HIS love in a tangible way. 

Our debt consists of our mortgage, the money we owe the people that have helped us, and our student loans. Even though there are no credit cards, car loans or other debts, the debt we have adds up and it isn't a sum that we can pay off with our own income or resources in the next 10 months. 

I know, it sounds crazy to be praying for something that there is no way we could possibly do on our own, but then that is the point of prayer, isn't it? We are asking for God's help with something we cannot take care of on our own. We are praying BIG.

So, why not add keeping our home to the list of the "impossible"?

We started praying for a miracle that would allow us to stay in our home, and if that wasn't God's plan, we prayed that God would bring us a new one that we could afford.

Regardless of the outcome, we made the decision to trust that God was not taking us from struggle to worse. We have been camped on Jeremiah 29:11-13 for the last two years and we held on to that promise even tighter as our list date approached.

A funny thing happens when you trust God. He comes through. When we surrender our will to His, we get to see that His plans for us really are GOOD. 

One night as we were praying as a family...

God gave us a word. We had been praying for Him to bless the sale of our home, that it would sell for more than we could imagine, and that He would bring us a new home. God told us that He would bring us a new home, a home that has all of the special little features that we have always dreamed of. One that would be on land, by a creek or river, that would have enough rooms for each of our kids to have their own bedroom and hopefully more than one bathroom. ;) 

BUT

We would not be selling this home. He told us that He would be faithful to keep His promises, (the prophetic words that were spoken over our home just a handful of months ago), that this home is ours and that it would be a "lighthouse" for others. He showed us that this home will be a place of refuge and hope for people in need and a place to stay for missionaries when they are home. 

We were instantly filled with joy and excitement to see what God was going to do and this hope that He had given us built up our faith to truly believe that He really would do something amazing with this storm.

Enough backstory... Get to the NEWS!!!

Two weeks ago God did 3 things. 3 amazing, incredible, impossible to imagine things. 

God fulfilled His promises.

He fulfilled two promises with one HUGE blessing. First, He fulfilled the prophetic word given to us months ago by another person that God would bring us the money we owed so we could pay back the couples that had helped us. Second, He fulfilled His word to us that we would keep our home. 

Though the love and generosity of two very dear people, who we could never, ever thank enough, we were given the money to pay the back what we owed. Which in turn enabled us to keep our home. 

We were just so overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude to the people that loved us so much that they would give us such a great blessing and to God for His faithfulness and the goodness of His plans.

Last week, we repaid the two couples. It was such an incredibly amazing feeling to be able to do what we could never have done on our own. 

There are no words to adequately express how blessed and how thankful we are to have received this blessing.

While we were still marveling at how this all turned out, God went and did another impossible thing...

He made something we were told "could never happen"... happen! 

When we bought our home, we used a "First Time Home Buyers Program" that essentially paid our 20% down payment. It didn't accrue interest and we didn't have to make payments on it. We would simply pay it off when we sold/paid off the house. 

Well, (forgive all the back story, but I want to make sure I communicate just how crazy amazing God is), several years ago, my husband had some medical needs. Our insurance said the treatment would be pre-approved so we went ahead with it. It turned out that it didn't get approved. We were on the hook for the entire bill. 

He wasn't making much money at the time and we had no room in our budget to even make small payments. Every dime had to go toward basic necessities.

As a result, we received a notice of intent to garnish his wages to pay the bill. 

Like I said before, we had no room in our budget to cover a small payment, let alone what they were asking to take out of his check. 

He was already working full-time at a new job and with his health concerns, he couldn't just get a second job to try and cover it. The kids were younger and fully home schooled at the time. The cost of childcare so I could get a job would far outweigh the income I would bring in.

Long story short, we filed bankruptcy.

If you have ever filed bankruptcy you know the stigma that is attached to it. You know the judgment that others pass on you. You know the shame, the guilt, the disappointment, the self-judgement... It wasn't a decision we made lightly and it wasn't what we "wanted" to do. 

Unfortunately, at the time, we didn't see any other way to be able to continue to provide for our children. So we did what we felt we had to do.

We opted to keep our home, so we would still be responsible for our mortgage, the down payment loan, and our student loans.

Well, two days after we got to tell the people that helped us that we could pay them back, we got a message from our real estate agent telling us that, by some crazy miracle, that down payment loan had actually been discharged with our bankruptcy!

We no longer owed that money! We had equity in our home that we hadn't known about!

So not only were we able to keep our home, but...

In a matter of days, God erased $40,000 of debt!

As impossible as all of this seemed just a few months ago, God worked all things for good to answer our prayers in ways we could never have imagined or dreamed of.

I can't tell you how completely overwhelmed we are with gratitude, joy, hope and faith for the things yet to come.

Let me just say this...

Our God is a God of miracles and He is faithful to answer us when we seek Him in prayer.

No prayer is too big, no request is too great, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE with God. 

I hope that in sharing our testimony, you are encouraged to believe God for the things you need and even abundantly MORE. <3

Be blessed, y'all. <3