God's Visible Hand

I don't know why I ever, ever even slightly doubt God's workings in my life and in the lives of the people around me. Looking back over the last few weeks just astounds me at how he "turned my mourning into dancing" so to speak. "Let me 'splain. No there is too much. Let me sum up." (Man, it's been way too long since I've seen that great movie!)

We arrived in North America excited to settle in and, in a sense, begin life anew. We eagerly continued the job hunting we started in Germany, optimistic about our prospects. But the weeks turned to months that went by filled with plenty of seemingly helpful advice on who to talk to where, etc etc, only to wait and wait and not get anywhere. Did God really have a place for us here? Did we somehow "misread" his plan for where we should live and this was how he would reveal it to us, by what felt like him leaving us out to dry, increasingly worried about if everything would actually fall together somehow? The questions were so real and built a good share of uncertainty in both of us. But then a startup company called one day and after a couple interviews Grady was offered a position among the mere 10 other guys who also worked there. But it somehow didn't seem like the right fit, and we continued to question. Yet no other options presented themselves, so we had no other choice!

Then other things started to nag at me. Ok, I thought, if Grady finally has a job that means we will get a house now. Or should we not get too tied down and maybe rent? But then option after option and house after house after house just didn't seem to be a good fit for us, and the two that we finally found and absolutely loved we lost to a higher offer (and multiple offer situations are extremely rare, and we experienced it twice!). We had even overbid on one of them, only to still lose it by $1000. The result? More questions, more uncertainty. And worst of all, thoughts of God having it in for us lingered around in my head. That or else he wanted to uproot us yet again which just seemed to overwhelming to bear. There seemed like no other explanations for why nothing was really working out.

It was the day we had just found out about losing the house we overbid on that my sister arrived. Looking back, this was the turning point for me. It became so obvious to me that God had brought her here to Rochester in the perfect timing for when I needed a dear friend most. It brought back a bit of hope that God is at work in the world and specifically my life. A bit of Natalie's exuberant faith couldn't help but overflow and replanted that trust in God in my heart again. Praise the Lord for that!

So then came more house hunting, but now underlying the search was the tiny seed of faith that God would lead us to the right place at the right time. No need to panic that May 1st was less than a month away, I was starting to re-realize that God would not leave us out to dry. Right? It's all I had to go from at that point since all my efforts had produced nothing.

Anyway, what is turning into a long post is meant to conclude with this: God did lead us to a wonderful house! It wasn't an "obvious" choice but we know it was His doing because of the peace we feel about everything, not to mention all the little details that just couldn't have fallen into place any more perfectly. Things like our low-ball offer being accepted with no counteroffer! And our incredibly close closing date of May 1st working out too! It's in our favorite neighborhood in Rochester and has so much potential for our dreams of redesigning some parts of it. It all worked out too well for it NOT to have been from God.

The questions and doubts that had grown in my heart started out so small and insignificant. But before I knew it my whole theology was in question and my faith suffered severely. I needed to be reminded to look for the ways He was working in my life. So I urge you to pause for a moment and think of one or two ways in which God has specifically and meaningfully worked in your life recently. Doesn't it just make you smile to know that God cares about you that much?! Enough to give us May 1st because it's important to us. And a job that Grady has unexpectedly settled into wonderfully, challenging his engineering prowess in a comfortably friendly work atmosphere. And even a delightful "Icecrema" coffee drink from Dunn Bros on this warm, sunny spring day! Right now it really seems that the more I trust and believe that God cares, listens and comes through on something, the more he does!

May you believe that just a bit more today, and then see how true it is.