Sunday, November 1, 2009

Our Jubilee house...

is the subject of today's thankfulness.

In 1999 we were still recovering from the loss of our first son, the loss of financial stability because of medical bills, and the loss of many dreams, namely more children. It was March and we were on our way to New Jersey for my sister's wedding. We were traveling with Chess who was about 20 months old.

We got stuck in the airport with a plane delay; Chess and his chunky self got ancy; my arms wore out and the festive family event threatened to turn irritability into a new definition. My aunt took Chess and walked him to sleep on her shoulder, and Husband took off through the airport while I tried to find serenity again.

When Husband came back, he had a house plans book with him. Happily, I sat down to dream of a dream house, marking pages as I went. When I was finished, Husband went through the book and made his choices. The 200 page book yielded one house plan that we both liked.

Fast forward to summer 2001. God had blessed us with two more sons, a 26 month old we had brought home Mother's Day 2000 and a newborn born to us April 2001. Our house that had plenty of room for a family of three was bursting at seams for a family of five. Looking for a house seemed financially beyond our resources.

And then two of Husband's grandparents died. They had lived lives of faithfulness to God and family, and He had blessed them spiritually. God had also blessed their stewardship of resources over the course of many years. Both godly grandparents were in their 90's before going home. Part of their legacy was to leave an inheritance not only to their children but to their multiple grandchildren. We had a choice before us as to how to use that inheritance.

We decided to look for a house, trusting that God would lead us to exactly where we were to live. After several months of looking and being disappointed, we found ourselves in a neighborhood with two house options. The first was a huge bust. The second one was a house that I had been watching in the realtor's book for three months. Every month the price had gone down about $10,000 but it still looked like a house that was beyond us, and not what Husband was interested in.

We looked anyway. He loved it. I loved it. And something seemed vaguely familiar. Once home, I pulled out the dream house file and THE house plan so many years ago that we had agreed upon as THE house we wanted to one day build, was THE house we had spent all day looking at. To give exclamation point to the statement, the house had been built the year our son died and had gone on the market seven years later, the month our last son was born to us.

For us, it was as a Jubilee year where God had restored to us a full circle of His provision--healthy sons, financial blessing, and a home of dreams. As God continued to work out every single detail, we knew that this house had been prepared for us.

I am thankful for a home, for God's miraculous provision, for the faithfulness of grandparents, for the legacy of blessing. I am thankful.

6 comments:

  1. What a wonderful example of God's provisions for His people and the rewards of faithfulness to Him. Thank you, Elle. I love it!

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  2. Oh, how good God is to us! I love looking back and being able to track his movements during times when we were unaware of what he was doing. He catches us by surprise, doesn't he, and makes us laugh and joyful with his goodness. I don't like the mourning part, but I'm big on the jubilee! I love your story, Elle, and thank God for his provision for your family.

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  3. Thanks be to God who works all things according to the counsel of His will! No detail too small to be beyond the reach of His grace and goodness!

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  4. What a wonderful fulfillment of a dream God brought to you.

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  5. I LOVE that story!!!!

    God can do ANYTHING - immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine!!!

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  6. What a wonderful story. It gave me chills as I was reading it! Thanks for sharing. God is so good.

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