Cancer, Purging & New House

praying-hands It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged. Honestly, my heart wasn’t in it, a lot has been going on with our family, work, my health and all that. So I wanted to take a few minutes to share the journey of the last 2+ years.

In 2009, my husband lost his job. By the end of the year, with no job prospects in sight, I realized it was up to me to make up his 6 figure lost income. So I kicked into gear, restructured my business and was making 6 figures in only 5.5 months. I was working up to 17 hours per day, and the stress was out of this world, but I did it, even though my health was in a downward spiral.

Fast forward to spring 2012, and Mark was then working at a small local company, making pitiful money, but with health benefits. I finally insisted Mark go in for a checkup, because I knew that the spot on his neck was malignant melanoma. I was right – Stage 3.

Mark had 2 surgeries and started cancer treatments. I had to be there for him, and cut back on some client work so I could juggle it all. By summer, I realized that with my health, and taking care of Mark, that we needed to downsize and get rid of the house we were living in. We did and in August 2012 moved into a brand new 4 bedroom duplex we were renting month-to-month.

The first few months we were in the duplex, we just rested. Mark was regaining his strength, I was working a lot, my health still not good and we were just healing.

Before long, we were looking for a new house to buy. We could literally go anywhere we wanted, as I work from home and am not tied to living close to a job. We looked for about 1.5 years in literally every direction out from where we currently live. We finally settled on a particular area we really loved.

Our new home!

Then came finding the right house, in the right price range, that would suit us in size, features, etc…. It was NOT easy, because we wanted a house below what we knew we could afford, as we want to pay it off in 10 years, not 30 years!

After much looking, we found our dream home. But unlike the previous two houses we purchased, I was the only one working, and I was self-employed. Let me just say – buying a house and getting a mortgage loan is a completely different experience when you’re self-employed!

When we downsized, we got rid of our washer, dryer, lawn mower, etc…. and left the big fridge with the old house; because we didn’t know how long it would be before we purchased another home, and our duplex came with all of these things (brand new) and they mow the yard!

Because of our rural home location choice, we opted for a specific loan program that has a maximum on how much money you can make; but the kicker is that with me being self-employed, to get pre-qualification for the loan, they would only count less than HALF of what I actually earn.

So we finally find our dream home, got the pre-approval,even though we had to juggle a couple debts into the business name, because they aren’t counting all of my income. We do that, get the home inspection, the sellers agree to fix the few minor issues that were found. All is going very well, until the week before we were to have our final loan commitment, and we discover that the same lender who made us juggle bills to qualify on the front end of this loan process, are now saying we make TOO MUCH MONEY at the end.

UGH!!! Lord, I know you did not bring us this far for this to end like this.

Thankfully, my husband realized two deductions that we can legally apply to my profit & loss statements and that adjusted the income enough for us to qualify. Whew!

Remember, we now have to buy a new refrigerator, washer, dryer, lawn mower, vacuum cleaner, repaint the kitchen cabinets, all the interior walls AND carpet my son’s downstairs bedroom (basically thousands of dollars of expenses we still need to pay for). We have some cash, but were willing to finance some of these things, if necessary; but we were going to move forward and make it all work…. then out of the blue, the Lord blesses us unexpectedly!

I had an existing client request additional work unexpectedly. I gave her a quote, and as usual, 50% of the total is due in advance of work starting. The client was so pleased with my work – she sent the ENTIRE AMOUNT!! Wow!

So now, we are getting the house the Lord has prepared for us, with enough cash to buy what we need. Now that is a testimony of God’s goodness and provision!