Changed By Love

Here’s one of the ways we’re resting in Him during the turmoil of the current storm.

We’re having fun with fruit!

Garrett liked it so much, he wanted to make one, too!

Still no house, but we do have a moving company lined up. We’re going to have the freight company ABF move our stuff. We’ll load, they’ll drive our stuff in a semi trailer. They’ll take it where we tell them to, and we’ll unload it there. All for under $3000. It sounds like a good deal to us. We’ll all get to ride together in our van down there. We may have to stay here in York an extra week to get the house stuff figured out.

Believe it or not, I may have to go to court on June 25 because the property management group has sued us for unpaid rent for July – next month(!), which isn’t due until July 1st and for a garbage and sewer bill that they say we didn’t pay for the whole year and a half that we’ve lived here. The funny thing is, we haven’t seen a bill for the garbage and sewer the whole year and a half that we lived here. The first bill or invoice they ever sent me was an invoice in my email on June 1st, about 2 weeks ago.

Does this sound fair to you? The woman who runs the property management group called Gary and left him a voice mail where she was screaming that she was going to get us out of this house whatever it took. So now we’re getting out of the house, because we actually have a place to go and a job that is supposed to last longer than 3 months, and now she’s trying to get every cent out of us she can and tormenting us by taking us to court besides. Nice, huh? And this may keep us in the house longer than we would have been!

Well, God is blessing in the midst of all this commotion. We have definitely struggled, but we’re praising Him in the storm. He is helping us to see how to stop in the midst of the chaos and turmoil and consult with Him about what’s happening. And He has blessed us with peace and clarity when we do that.

We had an issue with a house in Texas already, too. We had one picked out, but they started getting all impatient about getting our cashier’s checks that I would have to send there from here. They were pushing us around and saying that they could continue to show the house until everyone had signed the lease and possibly rent it out from under us. Well, it would take a couple of days for those cashier checks to get there, and it will take me at least a week to get there to sign the lease. The realtor told Gary one thing last night and then sent him an email that said the opposite today.

So now, we’re going to look for a different house. We are not going to work with greedy, inconsiderate people any more. They treat renters like second-class citizens and owners/landlords like “lords”. Lords and serfs all over again. We’re tired of being treated that way. If it takes a little longer, I will not hurry or feel like we’re stuck dealing with unfair, unreasonable people. I will not fear what man can do to me. My trust is in God. This is a new place He has brought me to.

I’m trying to sell lots of furniture on Craigslist to lighten our load. Please pray that it sells. It would help a lot.

Putting things away, packing things away and throwing things away.

And Emma and Abby are having a fashion show, trying on all the clothes I’m trying to deal with.

And then throwing them on the floor.

Gary has found a house that would be nice, but he’s not sure about the location. Lots of traffic close by, etc. He’s going to look at another one tonight. It has 5 bedrooms, but it looks like the study could be a sixth bedroom. I am anxious to know where our next house will be. The first owner accepted our application. Hopefully, the second one will be as quick about it, if that’s the house for us.

We’re still looking for movers and trying to decide our best, most cost-effective option.

We’re making good progress on packing.

The littles are patiently waiting. They don’t understand why we didn’t just go to Texas already. Sometimes, I wonder, too.

Cleaning, packing and preparing to move. We still don’t know where we’re moving to exactly. We still don’t have movers lined up. Pray for us. This is all very stressful.

I had to take the littles to the park yesterday to keep them out of the way. Now they’re running out of things to do since we’ve packed so much. Abby’s only 3, but she told me yesterday that she was bored. My kids have never said that word much, especially when they were only 3 years old. I don’t like to hear that word, but with her cute little 3-year-old accent, even that was cute! The way she said it sounded like, “I’m boid.”

Gary has been very concerned that the new job may not last very long, but we are trusting God for that. He’s still looking at other job possibilities! It’s hard to focus with so much on my mind.

But God is helping us through all of this, just like He always does.

I was sitting outside watching my little girls and talking to Gary on the phone as he drives down to Texas for his new job, when I noticed a moving truck down the street. Normally, I am not a nosy person, but for some reason, I started walking toward the truck. I was thinking that they might need help and I could volunteer my strong boys. As I got closer, I realized that it was a tractor trailer, not just a move-it-yourself kind of truck. We have been discussing the fact that we probably need more space than a regular moving truck has. It took two Penske trucks to move all of our stuff here from Illinois. As I got even closer, I realized that these were professional movers and did not need any help. But I kept walking, talking with Gary all along.

The new owner of the house came around the side of the house, and I told him that we would be moving out next week, so I was checking out the truck. He said that these movers from United Van Lines had been great and that I should talk to the guy in charge. So I hung back a little, not wanting to disturb them while they were busy unloading the truck. But the guy in charge of moving looked over at me, so I asked if I could talk to him when they got done. He said, “Come on over here.” So I walked over to him with Gary still on the other end of the cell phone. He asked when we were moving and where to. I told him Houston, near Sealy. The new owner of the house heard me, and asked if my husband’s job was with BAE Systems in Sealy. I said it was, and he said he moved here to work at BAE Systems in York.

Well, we all moved here because Gary came here to work for BAE Systems in York, and that didn’t turn out well at all. That’s why he ended up working in South Carolina instead! So I said, “I don’t think you want Gary telling you what he thinks about BAE Systems in York.” The new neighbor smiled and nodded. I told him that Gary was a technical writer and worked in technical publications. He said that Gary probably knew these certain guys then and threw out some names and I relayed to Gary what he was saying. I found out his name was Jeremy and handed the phone to him and said, “I know you’re busy, but could you talk to him for a minute?” He was happy to, and he and Gary talked for a few minutes. He ended up telling Gary he would send him an email tomorrow morning with some names of people to contact there at the Sealy facility.

Meanwhile, the mover called me over and warned me not to try to find a mover online. Well, I didn’t know any other way to find one. I told him, “All we know is the internet now.” He said over and over, “Don’t find somebody online, it’ll be the worst experience you ever had.”

So I asked him what we should do. He said all the moving companies are extremely busy right now, and he didn’t think we would be able to get anybody for another month at least. He saw that I was crestfallen, so he kind of whispered, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you need to check with ABF Freight. They’ll bring the trailer and leave it, you load it, they drive it down and you unload it.” That’s exactly what we’ve been wanting to do, but we didn’t know who to contact. Now we know that we need a freight company, not a moving company. And Gary has some good contacts at his new job in Sealy on his first day at work!

As I was praising the Lord, I thought I should do something to welcome our new neighbors to the neighborhood. I just happened to buy two boxes of brownies at the store right after I took my productive little stroll. Garrett loves to bake brownies, and I need to keep packing, so I assigned Garrett to bake some brownies to take to our new neighbors to welcome them to the neighborhood.

I like walking in the Spirit. I never know what I might do next! Or what blessing is waiting just around the corner.