This is getting a little embarrassing, isn’t it? Part SIX? Really???
Here’s what I envisioned:
Part 1: Listing our home: soft & surrendered
Part 2: We Accepted An Offer: feelings of going under contract.
Part 3: Hard Goodbyes: home in the rearview, tears in my eyes, hope in my heart. Here’s we’re were headed next.
I thought this would be a 30-45 day process from start to finish, and that by now— we would be somewhere else entirely.
But instead of packing up the house,
I’m unboxing disappointment, uncertainty, and a growing pile of questions I don’t know how to answer.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe “Surrender” doesn’t come in tidy arcs. Maybe it just keeps unfolding until you stop counting the parts.
The reason we put our house on the market when we did, was because I was utterly convinced that we’d be headed somewhere (can’t say where quite yet) by May 13th. I thought that the Lord would align things just so-
That we would:
list our house on 3/27
be in contract within a couple weeks
be closing mid-May; just in time to head to the destination we feel deeply God calling us for a temporary period of time.
But as you all know, it’s now May 16th, we’ve received 1 low offer so far. We countered- they didn’t budge.
Now the place we thought we’d go to in May- Isn’t possible until September *best* case scenario,
and worst case scenario- January 2026.
So right now, it just makes no sense for us to take a low ball offer, just to be forced to find temporary furnished housing for 4-7 months.
Now, if we had a full priced offer in the beginning, that’d be one thing- Even if the place we had in mind for May fell through, we would have been much more motivated to figure out housing until we could go.
But this? This makes no sense.
None of this is computing with my brain that convinces itself it’s SO good at predicting God’s next move.
I swear—
I am the worst chess player, and yet I think somehow I am good at calculating what the Lord is up to with my life.
I’ve actually always been this way with our creator, and humans.
No one can surprise me- I promise you, because I’ve already thought of every single angle, direction, play, move or countermove everyone around me could possibly make. And I’m actually usually pretty good at it with humans.
Just not so much with a chess board, or God.
I want to be surprised by humans, but I cant be.
But when it comes to God, I don’t want to be, yet I am.
I’m sitting on my back patio in the shade at Justices metal table he disappears to when he wants to water plants, smoke his pipe or cigars, or play chess on his phone. (Which he is actually good at)
Rune is in a diaper and shirt out in the yard, putting plants and mulch in his mouth. Babbling and smiling at me from afar.
I love it here.
There is no part of me that truly wants to sell this home, except that…
I want God more than anything else.
That is my only motivational factor about releasing my grip on this and running toward Him, pushing through the crowd and stretching out for the hem of his garment.
But God hasn’t allowed it all to fall into place just yet. And I don’t know why, and I don’t know when, or how or literally a single detail about my life right now. The day to day is a mystery as much as the long term is.
I am not by any means, upset that we’re still here. I’m enjoying every moment here that I possibly can. It’s more-so the limbo, the feeling of confusion about what the right thing to do next is.
I’m a doer, as they say.
And this season really has me just being a ‘be-er”
(While also constantly cleaning a home and keeping it show ready with 5 kids.)
The other day Justice and I had taken the kids to the park. We were discussing the low offer, and the drastic difference in financial plans that would leave us should we choose to accept it. Tensions were high. Hearts were weary.
Once we walked home, I collapsed on the bed next to him and said “can we just pray?”
So we did.
I wept and I prayed, as I felt I’ve done a million times during this process.
I’m so tired of praying because it all feels like God is just… hiding. Hiding the plan, hiding the next step we’re supposed to take.
It’s like God sent us an invitation in the mail- and we’ve decided to RSVP, but he left the
When:
just— blank.
Just …
You’re Invited!
Love,
God
P.S. Please RSVP by surrendering your heart & home.
I’m so confused and I’m so sick of my human brain trying to predict Him and being wrong and feeling like I heard Him (not audibly, but through circumstance- to list. And trust.) And so we did.
And we’ve waited and waited. And trusted and prayed and sat and waited.
I’ve stopped praying for the right buyer to come through the doors and started just begging for wisdom, clarity, discernment and mercy.
What. Would. You. Have. Us. Do. God?
Psalm 33.
I felt that chapter impress upon my heart out of nowhere.
So I opened my bible to the page. A coffee cup stain greeted me on the page. And right beside the verses, sometime ago, I don’t know when- I wrote—
‘<3 wait.”
The psalm reads:
Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage! The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.
I’m not clear on what exactly we’re to do yet, but I do still think the answer is still
”Wait for the Lord.”
I’m contemplating if waiting might even be removing the house from the market, and re-listing when it’s closer to the time we can ‘go’ to where we’re headed.
But that feels…
Backwards?
I don’t know.
We got two more showing requests for tomorrow evening. I wearily and reluctantly hit Y on my phone keyboard to confirm.
(Even though Justice is out of town for a wedding and I’m solo parenting 5 kids and have no idea how I’ll get the house clean before then.)
For now—and continually—
we’re waiting on You, God.
It’s Your move.
Only You can move us.
In Your mercy,
give us the endurance to stay present in prayer,
the wisdom to know when to act,
and the peace to remain still when You ask us to wait.
Even if it means answering “Y” again—
we will keep opening the door
until You open the one we’re meant to walk through.
And if we’re meant to take it off the market—
then let peace ring louder than panic.
Let clarity drown out the noise.
We’ve RSVP’d with surrendered hearts.
Now we wait on the One who knows the where, the when, and the why.
The One who sees the whole board.
The One who calls us not to control, but to hope.
We are waiting for the Lord.
And I trust—He’ll come.
I lift my eyes up to the hills
To where I heard you would be coming from
I know it's dark, but I'm here still
It feels like I'm the one you're hiding from
I've been waiting for something, and I'm about to give up
My lungs are filling with air, but it don't feel like enough
Right or left, down or up, I'll go wherever you want
I know you know what I'm looking for
Where are you hiding Lord?
Where are you hiding Lord?
I close my eyes and look within
You are the current of my soul's ocean
You are the light in this abyss
You are the Adam in my soul's garden
I've been waiting for something, and I'm about to give up
My lungs are filling with air, but it don't feel like enough
Right or left, down or up, I'll go wherever you want
I know you know what I'm looking for, tell me
Where are you hiding Lord?
Where are you hiding Lord?
Oh, where are you hiding Lord?
Tell me where are you hiding Lord?
Where are you hiding Lord?
I lift my eyes up to the hills
To where I heard you would be coming from
Praying for you through this. We sold our beautiful home and left our beautiful community last year April 2024 (left) sold home in July 2024 at barely breaking even. I wish in retrospect we hadn’t, and I’d just continued to have faith in the Lord maybe rented the home or something instead of selling. The thing is looking back the Lord was providing for us through our hardship, but I pushed us to leave because I was afraid. So many months of God providing our every need…I was still afraid. I mean truly, it’s strange thinking back on all the financial windfalls God provided for 9 months that my husband was job searching.
I felt like God was calling us back to Texas, and it seemed like everything was working out for us to be there. Again, God provides for us in all situations. In the end we sold, and left our beautiful community and it cost a fortune to move pulling out of our 401K to just get out of the mountain of debt it cost to move across the country. We quickly realized we were in a spiritual desert about 6 months after moving back to Texas, and 3 moves later of temporary homes. We finally said we are ready to give up the big paycheck and move back even into a small fixer upper and live on one income. God provided again - with an amazing fully remote job for my husband who’d given up on even applying for them and was about to accept a different role for much less just to get back approximately to our old community.
My reason for saying this, just have faith and God will provide for you on whatever path you take. He will be with you.
Life with Melody has very often placed me in the position for my heart to ask, “Who is coming to fix this!?” It has been an indirect question my soul screams out to God. Because I’m afraid to ask directly. If He will ever change this path with a miracle for my daughter, or if the miracle is the path and watching it all unfold. I don’t want it to be the latter, but that is what it has been so far. So much humanity and so much divine unrelenting presence in the pain.
Obvs, our walks are currently very different in so many ways, but also very similar. Thanks again for sharing, it is so encouraging and makes me feel less alone!
He loves your surrender, Mikayla. 🤍