Housing Contentment

I think that if I’ve ever had a “dream house” at the time, and if I’m honest even today, this house was it.  Shawn and I fell in love with it from the first time we saw it.  We sat in the living room and imagined how we were going to pain and where we’d hang our art.  We LOVED this house.  So we put money down to have it built.

Then, we started to pray.  The main reason for putting the money down first then praying was this was the last of this model they were building and if we wanted it we had to put money down.  So we did.  Our God was gracious and we were willing to listen to His voice.  We decided that we weren’t supposed to buy the house.  There were two factors.  1.  While we could “afford” it, it would have stretched us and we would have had little breathing room financially, and 2.  It was an hour drive each way to and from town.  I’m sure that if we could have comfortably afforded the house the 1 hour drive may not have been so heavy a situation.

As I look back now I’m so glad that we listened to God.  When we were buying the house the housing market was at the top of it’s boom.  A couple short years later it’s at the lowest it has been in years.  We probably would either be foreclosing or having to short sale the house today.

I saw this picture today and the others we took when we toured the house.  It sparked one of those “ohhh” responses.  We still love the house we’re in that we bought before the boom hit and we can afford.  And in the recent months we feel that God is calling us to actually down size rather than having a big fancy house.  We simply want to hear and heed His voice and be content in all that He calls us to.