It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the work of your hands I sing for joy. ~Psalms 92:1-4, ESV

“And now the rest of the story…” I’ve given parts of this story on Facebook, but it really needs to be told in its entirety. I cannot help but give thanks and praise to God. If you’re like me, usually God seems to come through in the ninth inning. Yes, he’s never later per se, but he does seem to cut it awfully close sometimes. Well, this wasn’t one of those times. This time he came out swinging in the first inning and blew it out of the park! The other team didn’t even stand a chance!

If you know us in real life, you know we’ve been saying we were going to move for years. I loved our house, but the school and neighborhood weren’t ideal for our kids. Well thanks to a praying friend, in the last year we started to feel a push from God that the time was coming soon for us to sell our house. So in May, we had some other friends, who are frequent movers and home sellers, come over and show us what we needed to do to get our house ready. They were a big help and left us with a long list and many great ideas.

In June we started checking items off the list. Slowly. By the time Liam came in August, we had the bathroom gutted and that was about it. My plan was to pack up the house of all but essential items in October and start getting the house ready to stage in November. I hoped that by December or January we would be ready to start showing it. I was not looking forward to that. I was downright dreading staging the house with two small boys.

Then in late September, I was sitting at our kitchen table doing my quiet time when I got the feeling that I needed to drop my November class I was scheduled to teach at Southern Nazarene University (SNU). I quickly dismissed the thought thinking, “That’s silly! I don’t think one night a week for five weeks will be that hard at all.” But the feeling persisted. I finally said, “Okay, God, if this is from you, you’re going to have to be clearer, because I’m going to ignore this thought.”

That night Jeremy came home and asked what I thought about his job, Ford AV, sending us back to Hawaii for a few months in the fall. I told him it sounded like a great idea to me, and we both agreed if we did get to go back to Hawaii, then we would rush to get the house done, so we could sell it while we were gone. Just out of curiosity I asked him what time his boss had told him about the possibility of Hawaii. They had asked him between 1 and 2 pm that day while my conversation with God had happened between 11 and noon. After our trip details were finalized, I called SNU and canceled my November class.

So instead of leisurely getting our house ready. We rushed. With the help of friends and family, we got everything done in 6 weeks including moving all of our belongings into storage so we could show the house empty. Some thought we were crazy moving our stuff out. We were only going to be gone 3 1/2 months what if it didn’t sell in that time? We knew that was a possibility, but we decided to have faith that it would sell in time.

During all the rushing, I was in a Beth Moore Bible study at church called Believing God. Just about the time we left in mid-November our class was studying Joshua and his “sun stand still prayer” to God in Joshua 10.  I had the feeling that I needed to ask God for a “sun stand still” prayer when it came to our house. The most amazing thing I could think of was that if it would bring glory to God that our house would sell in a week.

Also during this time, I had the strongest feeling that God wanted us OUT. Now. It seemed he had our house in mind for someone and was so excited to give it to them, just like a parent with the perfect Christmas present. So I covered the house in prayer as I worked on it and packed. Praying that everything would come together for the potential buyers and that God would sell the house fast!

We arrived in Hawaii on Tuesday, November 15th and our house went on the Market on Monday, November 22nd. On Tuesday the 23rd our realtor, Brent Carter, called to say he had an offer on the house. It was exactly the amount we had in mind. Exactly. God had not sold our house in a week but in a day!

Now you have to understand that we interviewed two other Realtors for the job. The first wanted to price our house much lower to start with and thought we needed to stage it. The second had sold another house in our area in 2 months, but he was reluctant to tell us how many homes he had sold in 2011. Both told us that selling a home in this market, in our price range, in 3 months was going to be hard.

Well, of course, we accepted the offer immediately. Over the next two months our closing date was delayed a couple of times, but on Tuesday, January 31st our house sold! The following Monday Brent sent us an email telling of God’s provision. That day, six days after our house closed, the house next door went on the market in foreclosure. He told us that it was priced significantly lower than what our house sold for. If God hadn’t sold our house when he did, we would have had to sell it for much less. Thank you, God!

*We all need to hear each other’s stories of when God comes through big or small. They help us to gain encouragement, especially when we’re in seasons that take great faith. I would like to make “God Stories” a monthly post. If you have a story you would like to share, please check out our Guest Writer’s Guidelines.