Life Lessons.

Sometimes it is hard being a grown-up.  Tim and I heard from our mortgage company today - we were denied assistance through the government program, which was our last resort after a two and a half year process of trying to sell our house or to lower our payments by refinancing.  It feels like every door we've knocked on has been opened slightly and then slammed in our faces and it's hard not to get discouraged.  

In the midst of this disappointment I am thankful for my faith in God tonight because I believe He is good and I believe everything in my life happens for a reason.  I often play the "could have, would have, should have" game in my head...in fact, that's usually my first reaction when things like this happen.  "We should have never bought this house...we could have sold it if we had lowered the price at the very beginning of this process...we would have avoided this heartache if we had just stayed in an apartment three years ago..."  The bottom line is that we did what we felt we were supposed to do at the time - and hindsight IS 20/20 in this case.

To flip my little game on its head, if we hadn't bought the house I wouldn't have learned the following life lessons:

• living in community, which taught me SO much about love, service, partnership, and trusting God
• learning that I don't need a house to have a home
• losing Tank and learning how to grieve and survive despite the loss
• refining my vision of what I truly value in a home and in a town  

My calling is clear - my number one responsibility is to raise our daughter and to devote myself fully to doing this job.  I don't know what to do next when it comes to this house, but God will provide, and I just pray that He will reveal the lessons He's trying to teach me in the process.  When Stella looks back on these first years of her life I am confident she will value having me by her side more than having a house.

This face keeps me going...and keeps me smiling, too.