…tomorrow! LOL! My dad said this in a sermon on Sunday and I loved it. I have been saying this all day. My father and I both have the same “worry” disease but now that he is in his 50’s, he has travelled much farther down this path and has learned valuable lessons along the way. I am gaining from his wise council:). When he was a teenager he worried so much he got ulcers (incidentally – I did too). I have watched him transition into a man dependant on Mylanta to a man who doesn’t seem to worry about much at all. A few times I have had news to give him regarding various situations and MY stomach hurt to even talk about the stress. He has shocked me with his “Well – let’s not be concerned let’s just see what God wants to surprise us with”. He truly is practicing what he preaches in this arena and I hope that I can embrace this wisdom in my 30’s:).

In his sermon he mentioned his past anxiety issues and how he finally decided that : “I can always worry tommorrow. If God fails tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and start worrying but I would just prefer to sleep well tonight.” God doesn’t fail us so this worrying business just gets less and less attractive:)

I have been teaching on the 12 historical era’s of the bible. (Creation, Patriarchs, Exodus, Conquest, Judges, Kingdoms, Exile, Return, Silence, Gospels, Church, Missions). During the Patriarch portion we were discussing Abraham (also part of my BSF study) and I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the subject of anxiety verses faith. I want to be a woman that simply can let God be God and stop wasting my energy worrying about things that are in His realm – not mine. The good news is…it’s working! I have had almost 2 full weeks of very little worrying! Yeah!!!

What is it that had my mine absorbed? Ty’s surgery and selling our house. Ty’s surgery went well and he is doing great – more on that in his post. The house subject is one that I will tackle next:). Again, if I were you I would skip this section. I am only writing this because I believe that on our faith journeys we need to keep record of God markers:). When I see God move, I like to have a written record because later when I start feeling anxious I can read about all the times he didn’t fail me in the past;).

So here is the house story:

For quite sometime several family members have been trying to convince me that we have outgrown our home. Our home is on the smallish side and because I want 2 to 3 more kids and I want to homeschool, it would be really nice to have more room. HOWEVER, prices in Phoenix are ridiculous. We bought our home 5 years ago and we are selling it for double what we bought it for. The bad news is, the house we want is now overpriced too but at least we can put hopefully 20% down and not pay mortgage insurance. Plus, at this moment we qualify for 5.75% interest on a 30 year so that should help.

Each time this conversation came up with family I said that I was content (and I was/am) and even though I would like a larger home, I didn’t feel the pressure to sell right now.

Two weeks ago my husbands aunt (who is a realator) was working an open house in our area (the neighborhood just south of ours). She asked me to come visit her and bring the boy’s by. My mom and I were running around all day but we made time for this quick trip. When we walked into the house to say hi to Aunt Joan, my mom said “Doni! This house looks like you!” I agreed! This house was built by the same builder that built ours so the architecture is similar. It is simply the “step up” model. It is almost 700 square foot larger than ours and that extra sq footage makes all the difference.

Within a week BEFORE seeing this house Jim and I had a conversation about “someday” when we bought another house. I had a mental list of what my “must have’s” were for the next house I bought. Here was what I told Jim: (a) Must have Family Room AND Living Room/Formal Dining (b) Need a bigger kitchen with an island and room for more storage space (c) need a linen closet (d) Bigger Master Bedroom (e) Bigger Master Bath (f) Bigger Master Closet. This house met my list perfectly! I walked in and thought “This is exactly what I would love to have”.

My mom and Jodi had both been talking to me about buying a new house but I dismissed their comments:). When I called Aunt Beck to tell her about my find she said “That is so weird! I couldn’t sleep last night so I started praying that God would gift you with a house with more space!” This is especially ironic because Aunt Beck knew that I had NOT been praying for this – it seems that the other woman of my family were petitioning on my behalf.

For these reasons, since my family members were praying about it and I stumbled upon it without looking for it, I have had to ask myself “Did God WANT me to want this house?”

I don’t know the answer to that but I decided it was worth it to pursue it and see (and obviously Jim agreed). We made an offer on it but we have a contingency that lasts only until Feb 22nd. That means we would need to sell our house before then under this contract. Our house went on the market TODAY. Last week was crazy with all the cleaning I had to get done (plus Ty’s surgery…sigh) but I got everything done I wanted to. Funny that your house never looks better than when you are trying to sell it:) LOL.

Anyhow, I’ll keep you updated on our “God tracking”….does He want the Brinkman household to relocate 1 mile down the road or does He want us to stay here. Did He show us the house for His purpose because he wants us to have it, or He wants us to be open to moving or was it simply one of life’s ironies? We shall see.

One thing that was cool was that one of the things we requested in our offer was accepted and we later found out that the night before our offer was made the sellar had changed the profile to reflect what we were asking for (and we didn’t know it:). So far things are going along smoothly – now we just wait and see if it sells. Our backyard is still not landscaped and there has been a LOT of debate about what to do about that when we had to list it so quick. I am getting a bid on it tomorrow so I know what the cost would be to get it done. I am rambling now so I’ll quit this dialogue.

And by the way, I slept great last night because I told myself that I could always worry tomorrow! LOL.