Good bye Florida House...

...and Florida house electric bill.

...and Florida house water bill.

...and Florida house lawn care bill.

...and Florida house insurance.

...and Florida house HOA fees.

etc. , etc. etc.

Can you tell that we are not going to miss our house in Florida?

WHAT A HEADACHE!!! A 19-month long headache.


But it is OVER! And we are so grateful to God for His endless provision and mercy through the whole process. And the MANY things He taught us through the trial.


It says in James to "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds ..." That is hard to do sometimes. Actually, all the time. And this time was no different. Constant frustration, endless hours of work and phone calls, watching our savings drain away, etc. etc etc. It is HARD to be joyful under such circumstances. And yet, God had shown us in the past that He is faithful and in charge of details, so we were able to keep trusting, with what Joy we could muster, declaring Him as in charge of it all! And as usual, He did have a plan that was good...

After watching one renter after another fall through and always being buyers second choice for the past 19 months, it is SO COOL to now be on this side and see how God was at work all along. It is like that story about how God sees the beautiful, finished side of a tapestry when we are looking at the knotted, ugly side with all of the loose thread ends everywhere. If any of the renters or earlier buyers would have worked out, we would have lost a lot of money(on top of paying for it for the past year). Which we were expecting and prepared for all along, but of course, not looking forward to. As it turned out, long story-short, the bank accepted our request for a short sale (albeit an unusual one, as we weren't defalted on payments and GE was covering all the closing costs). SO, even though our house sold at about half (yes, HALF) of what we paid for it, first to my dad and then to another family, our final "bill" is only a small fraction of the loss. And my dad, is like our earthly hero of the story! My dad joined us in the misery as it looked like we were running out of time to have GE help with all of the closing cost expeneses and he would rent it to a family that has wanted to buy it, but couldn't for a few more months. We had to sell it to him and then have him sell it to a family that put in a bid a week after his as the paperwork was already started and it had to all be finished by Jan 23rd (which is basically a Miracle for short sales these days) for the final buyer. Thankfully, neither of us own a home in Florida now that it is all said and done!

Though the ENTIRE process was a HUGE pain, we have learned so much. Not the least of which has been Thankfulness. These days, with many friends and neighbors without jobs, we were thankful to have a paycheck each month and savings account to cover the bills! We were also reminded on many occasions that it was a trial that did not involve the health of us or our children. The list of things we could count as blessings was LONG!!

It was long. But it is over. And as always, our God was faithful and good! To Him be the glory!