BRAINSTORM IN ACTION!

Since the decision was made about my job, we decided to explore the possibility to move closer to our children that my sister brainstormed one day.

We thought that we would try to sell our home on our own, if at all possible. If it didn't sell, well we would just stay PUT. It was rather unlikely that we could sell it, since houses where we lived were on the market for a couple years and not moving. It was certainly a buyers market. Well we put a sign out in our front lawn on a rainy day in midweek (our telephone # and for appointment only written on sign). We really didn't expect much traffic and interest in our house because of the slow housing market, but lets wait and see what happened

The following Saturday morning I woke up, showered, dressed and decided to have a sip of coffee and read the paper while relaxing on the front porch (which by the way, we loved).

No more than my first sip and a car drove into our driveway. The man got out and inquired about the house. He was driving a Mercedes diesel car and said he was looking for a house for his children. I gave him the specs and of course he wanted to see the house right then. I thought a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so I told him OK. Remember, they were supposed to
make an appointment to see the house).

He went through each room and he was ecstatic, HE LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THE HOUSE! Now this is not what you expect from a interested buyer (they usually aren't that vocal). He said that the house reminded him of his own home. Of course, I didn't know where he lived, so I thought he probably had a brick bungalow like we were offering for sale. The house did have a "charm" about it, with 3 large picture windows in the living room with small panes, fireplace, etc. The last thing he said after going through the house was, "Don't sell this house before noon, as I want my children to see it this afternoon". I thought to myself, NO WAY WOULD WE SELL IT BEFORE NOON (remember the slow market out there).

He came back in the afternoon and his son and daughter in law looked at it. They weren't as verbal as he was about the house, and we thought they were the final say of whether they liked it or not. They left that Saturday and we really didn't know what was going to happen.

Monday morning rolled around and I had showered, gotten ready to go to work, sipping my morning coffee in the living room catching up on the current news from the paper as I had a few minutes to spare. I heard this diesel engine car driving very slowly past and around the side of the house (our house was on a corner). I thought, this sounds like the same car that came on Saturday and sure enough, it was. Then I knew that they were still interested in the house.

It was our custom to go out to eat at a local steak house on Tuesday evening after work. They always ran a steak special that night and you know us, we like bargains.

I had gotten off work and before we could leave to eat, the son came around to present a verbal offer for the house. He offered quite a bit less than what we were asking. We said no to that offer. We said that we didn't have that much to play with. We had the house appraised and added the newly custom made drapes to the appraisal price, and added a little bit more (so we could come down a little). We gave him the appraisal price sheet and we went to out to eat.

By the time we came back from eating, the son had a written signed offer for the appraisal price of our house! Now we thought this was too good to pass up, since we would have to pay the realtor more than what we had added to the appraisal price. The house was "SOLD", within a week of our feeble attempt to put out that sign in the rain. God surely, had put his stamp of approval on our move!

The house at least was sold pending approval of the loan. I'm sure the father gave a helpful hand to his children in this regard. The loan went through with flying colors, we were without a house and they had our house pending upon our move in about three months.

The father by the way, was an owner of a business in our city and had a gorgeous older estate home closer to the lake.

Wisdom--When God is guiding our lives, we need not worry about the surrounding circumstances, we just know when He is working in our behalf. Now, we had to see where and what to do next and follow His lead.