Throughout our lives there are opportunities to increase our trust in God. As I ended my last blog post expressing our efforts to trust God I was reminded of an experience that we had in 2019 that increased both my ability and my desire to put my trust in Him. I want to share it here in two parts because that is how I learned.

We were happily living our life in Dallas, TX when we (very) unexpectedly fell in love with a small town in Utah and subsequently bought a little piece of property – I have already written about this and we also count it as a “learning to trust God experience.” A couple years later we felt that it was about time for us to move – but we were in no hurry. David was a senior in high school and Kimberly was a junior.

We contacted our favorite realtor (Lori Stevens) and we began to make plans. We knew from our Washington experience that it can take a long time to sell a large home, so we listed the home and sat back to wait. We set our price – a few months later Lori Stevens went to a seminar in Dallas about pricing homes. They used our home as an example and it turns out that we were spot on. We received offers but since we were in no rush we held out and continued to enjoy our friends and Texas experiences.

Nine months went by and the girls and I were in Las Vegas to attend the bridal shower for Nathan’s fiancé and get to know her better. In a time of quiet prayer I had a strong feeling that the time had come to do whatever it took to sell our home. It was time! Along with this feeling I had a desire to drastically lower the price of the house.

How would Mark take the news that I wanted to lower the price and move as soon as possible? I was a little nervous to present my new plan, but when I returned home it turned out that he was having those same feelings! I was surprised and so pleased. Our realtor was shocked, but just like that our home-selling efforts became much less of a chore. I think we cut the price by about 20% so showings picked right up and soon we had a cash offer which was significantly lower than we were asking… We happily accepted the offer! Here is the thing – we kept looking at each other and asking, “How are we so happy about all of this?”

We asked the question but it was true. We felt joy in losing so much money – but it wasn’t about the money. We felt joy because we had responded to heavenly promptings. God’s ways are not our ways. We hired an estate sale company who came and helped us to sell almost everything we owned. Again we wondered, “How could be so thrilled about getting rid of our favorite furniture, clothing, decor and other belongings?”

We had never had an experience quite like this. Our realtor, who had become a dear friend, was upset for us. Though we were of different faith backgrounds, she and I had enjoyed many religious conversations. She took a lower commission and continued to fume just a bit about the situation. I finally looked at her and said, “Do we believe in the concept of ‘Thy Will be Done’ – or do we believe in ‘Thy Will be Done… but only if I make a lot of money?”

As I expressed this thought to Lori, I heard the words I was saying… and I was changed.

…the lessons were not over for me – and I will write more very soon…