As a general rule we do things the stupid way. We like to be an example to the masses of how NOT to do things.In the past, we made totally stupid large purchases, dumb financial choices, and used questionable judgment when prioritizing what we did when we had a little extra cash. Let us just say that we had a few fun vacations back in the day. Oh, and we owned some pretty dumb vehicles. The vehicles alone are an entire post. Stupid stupid stupid. The upside down part of the title comes in here.
All of this is just to say, it sort of figures that we have done the moving away thing backwards too. Most people enter the mission field after selling all their stuff and unloading their mortgage debt. They take the huge leap of faith. We went another route and were cautious (read: chicken) by keeping all our crap and renting out our house with all our stuff stored in it.
We speculated that we could make it a year in Haiti and even if it was awful we'd have a house to come back to after we fell flat on our faces.
Then God went and confused us with how exciting it was to work and live in Haiti and how fun it was to learn more about pressing in and seeing Him work. Now that we've established that we can survive in a culture that totally perplexes us, we are left with a house filled with belongings to unload ... and we're grieving the "stuff" two years after moving away from it all. Dumb? Yes. I think it is dumb and backward.
Troy and I did a fairly odd little marriage communication dance over the last three months. I kept asking what he thought about the house and he kept sort of ignoring my need to make a decision because he had no desire to sell. He makes decisions with indecision sometimes. Thankfully, I am a submissive wife, so patient and kind that I just quietly wait on him-- forever and ever and ever and ever - if need be. cough. cough.
SO, for weeks it was listed as a rental only. In those weeks no truly interested renters were found. Just last week we finally made the leap to put it on the market. We both came to the place of letting go and agreed that it is God's house (well, and the bank's house) and we need not hold on to it for the sake of comfort or a safety-net. Today, a renter called interested and instead of being excited, we're thinking, "a renter? we want to sell this place!" Troy speculated that maybe God just wants us to be willing to let the house and stuff go and now that we are He won't actually have us do that. WHAT??? Uh-uh. No sir.Lord God, please ... I am half insane already ... don't mess with my head. I'm serious, go ahead and sell the house. Don't further confuse me.
We're anxiously waiting to see how God will resolve the whole house dilemma. We're also conscious of the fact that this is the sort of dilemma two-thirds of the world would LOVE to have. We own a home. Most people worldwide live in make shift "homes" that don't offer them any sort of financial safety or investment opportunity. Sometimes it takes considering those facts in order to gauge how easy our problems are and how truly blessed we really are.
