He Redeems All Things

As any of you who have lost some one close to you can attest, certain days can become very difficult.

August 25th is my mom's birthday, and at times it has been very difficult, especially the first few years....BUT GOD!

He is such a loving Father and cares about the things that we care about.

He really does make all things new.

Mark and I were young when we got married, full of dreams and ideologies; not unlike most newly weds.

In all of our married years, Mark has never earned a paycheck based on salary...it's always been based on commission. This can be great, but it is very hard to make up and stick to a budget when there is no set amount to use as a basis for that budget. One month, there may be overflow....the next 2 might be lean or even non existent.

Before we knew it, we were well over our heads in debt and with  a few bad decisions thrown in there, seeing the light of day, became a dream. (actually reaching it seemed beyond our possibilities)

Eventually, we learned how to put God at the head of our finances and our dreams. We learned to tithe and to give, we worked hard and we prayed, cried and pleaded LOTS. God taught us wisdom and with that wisdom and some Divine intervention, little by little He helped us to climb out of the hole we were in.

Our dream had become the purchase of our first home...having lost almost everything TWICE, this was a huge dream.

We were married 15 years with 4 children before we were finally ready to buy our first home.

The year that we were finally ready, the housing market in our area went crazy...it became a seller's market and homes were selling the day they were listed for more than the asking price.

I was getting pretty frustrated as month after month we scanned listings, looked at houses and any time we came across a house that might be suitable in our price range...it would sell before we could even look at it.

Our dream was so close...yet still out of reach.

I'd had a dream, one night, that our Real Estate agent found us our house.

We got a call on August 25th. A house had just been listed, did we want to have a look. Mark was a little skeptical, as the asking price was lower than would be expected...something must be wrong with the house. I pushed to go and see it stating that it was my mom's birthday, and it would be just like God to give me a special gift that would bring redemption to an otherwise difficult day.

The kitchen was old and Mark was sure I would not be happy with it as I love to cook. All of the other big items like the roof, furnace, windows, landscaping and deck had all been recently replaced, and I could see the potential of the kitchen. Mark said it would be about a year before we could renovate...I said I could live with that and by Midnight August 25th, 2005,  we had viewed, put in an offer and had it accepted. We found out that there were 10 other people scheduled to view our house the next day, and one put an offer in without viewing the house, just in case our offer fell through!

It gets better though, because the house was listed low in such a hot market, our lender approved enough money to replace all the upstairs flooring, paint and to have a custom renovation done on the kitchen!

Within 2 weeks of signing the purchase agreement, there was a flood in our area of town and we were able to pick out all new flooring and paint for the basement as well...all payed for by the seller's insurance.

We moved into a home that was completely brand new on the inside, and was assessed at

 $40 000.00 MORE than our purchase price before a single piece of furniture was moved in!!!

THAT is the miracle of a God who loves to "make ALL things new"!!!

August 25th was our dream-come-true-day, and I was able to whisper with a very full heart

"It Truly is a Happy Birthday Mom".