The downturn of 2008 like to have killed me. I was thinking deeply today, while trying to take a little nap this afternoon. We spent the morning helping one of our sons who is living in a camper and building his house (history repeating itself in our family...). I squeezed my fluffy frame up and down a ladder -- that frame that's being supported by a bum knee, in small spaces in his house, painting ceilings and walls. Arriving back home, I scrubbed paint off my poor skin until it was beet red, then scrunched up for a snooze after Ken tucked me in. He does that, arranging my pillows just so...it makes for the most blissful naps. It makes me feel safe, looked-after. Lord help me not to take that man for granted.
Then I couldn't sleep, my mind drifting back to the day we sold our wonderful farmhouse in 2012. We had built that place in 1996 from scratch, literally, carving it out of the dirt, building it stick-by-stick, living in our leaky old camper with those four kids and stretching ourselves to the limit to get it finished. The plan was to live there until we died and be buried in the backyard. If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans. On paper, if you look at our income for 2008-2012, it does not make sense that we were not homeless and begging bread on the corner. We had lost everything but our people and our house, and it was questionable that we could hang on much longer. The people were a non-negotiable (even the teenagers). In fact, our children labored alongside us through it, the boys who were working paid rent and our daughter and I loaded up our ladders and painted houses while Ken faithfully put his boots on every morning to eke out enough to keep our heads (barely) above water. It's interesting how the Lord kept us afloat and we never missed a meal (a few wouldn't have hurt).
When the house finally went under contract, I hit the road, searching for something that we could buy with the cash we would be getting after the mortgage was paid off at closing. I would view 8 or 10 homes myself, then take Ken and show him the 2 or 3 that I liked. There was a lot of scrambling, as we had only a short while to find something. And it was slim-pickin's; we were not going back into debt. Ken had nearly died from a liver abscess a few years before, and we still owed nine doctors. Our plan was to pay them off and then buy a house with what was left. There was $125,000.00 to show for our many years of buying and selling houses, after we paid the piper.
My days were a rush of looking for the next house. When it was bedtime, I'd trudge upstairs and shower, then lay prostrate on the rug in our bedroom and cry. In particular, one of our sons and our daughter were so upset about us selling the house, it was simply unbearable. Our children had built the place right along with us. Their happy memories and childhood adventures were had in the woods and fields surrounding it. My stomach was turning inside out from the grief; I began having bouts of intense abdominal pain, particularly during my nightly cry-fest on the rug.
I must have looked at a hundred homes in Douglas and Carroll counties. There were few things in our price range, and nothing made sense. One day, I decided to simply search "Villa Rica," regardless of the price tag. Up came an old Victorian in downtown Villa Rica that was more than we were able to pay (and still stay out of debt). It was vacant, so I went to look anyway. The lockbox was on the back door. As I opened it, I noticed the hand-carved wood and stained glass. I stepped into the laundry room and looked up, where there was an ancient light fixture that looked like a star. Every corner I turned, there was charm, intricate woodwork, fireplaces, stained and leaded glass, 12-foot ceilings, an insane front porch. All kinds of things that screamed my name. I have always loved old homes and we had tried several times in past years to buy one. They were always beat up and in serious need of money and attention, but we tried anyway. None of them worked out. I was scared to hope for this one and put my heart and emotions in neutral. It didn't have a decent bathroom and it was dark and had scads of ugly wallpaper peeling, as well as literally dozens of different colors inside and out. But the bones, they were good. I took Ken to see it and that was all she wrote. He said, "This will be our grandparent house" (there were none of those yet, but we were hoping). When we offered up our $125,000, the seller said no, but that he would owner-finance the rest of it. There was a "vanilla" house in Douglasville that we knew we could buy and fix up for that amount, so we prayed and stuck to our guns. We were tired of bondage and knew we had to be out of debt in order to make it. It's in the Carroll County deed book, that the seller finally agreed to that price. An army of loved ones, family and church helped us move. Two days in, my stomach had had enough and I wound up in the hospital for a week. Worry, grief, stress, those things can wreck you if you let them. Trusting God is the better way. My tendency is to try and fix everything myself, before I just ask Him. He had already answered, and gloriously.
I think often, probably too often, of all that conspired in those days. Our house had emptied out except for our daughter, not long before we moved. All three sons had married up and Liz was away at college. I had lots of time to ponder what had just happened to us. Ken got me a puppy and I spent a great deal of time languishing on that front porch.
You look on your life and it seems like it happened in a blink. The turning of the pages and seasons, like a panorama or a book, occurs without our permission. One foot in front of the other, the next event, the next week, the weddings, the births, the deaths. Sometimes our noses are so attached to the grindstone, we're not even aware that we've become exhausted, grumpy, cynical. I think it's essential that we clean up, stop and dream on our beds, cool and dusty with cornstarch. We make our plans. Life happens while we're distracted, just trying to survive. Look upward, angel...
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