A Moving Story
My wife and I, along with our daughter wanted to sell our two-bedroom flat and buy a house. We needed a more spacious, home with a garden for the children to play in. I wrote “new house” on my prayer list and we put our flat on the market where it remained unsold for over a year. Three estate agents independently told us they thought our flat would probably sell for about £30,000 short of what we needed to get a house in the area we wanted to live. It was simple maths; we couldn’t afford to move, but really needed to. When our second child came along, the need became more pressing, as we only had two bedrooms and the baby’s bedroom was the corridor next to the front door!
We always had a strong to desire to have a new-build house, as there are many advantages to suchproperties, but after a time, I became quite disillusioned and told my wife that we were wasting our time as we couldn’t afford a house we would be happy living in and so we took our flat off the market and resigned ourselves to staying in the flat for the foreseeable future.
Two months later I got home from work to be told by my wife that she had walked down a street she didn’t normally use. She told me she had seen a sign advertising new houses being built with the Government “Help to Buy” scheme available. Her exact words were “I want one of those houses and you need to make it happen”
Well, I had lost faith at that point that God would ever answer our prayer for a new house but I agreed anyway to put the flat back on the market. My wife, on the other hand, didn’t waiver in her faith, right from the moment she saw the sign. Only 6 days after we put our flat back on the market a couple came to view the flat. They seemed very keen on it and after they had left my wife told me very firmly that they would buy the flat at very good price. She was convinced, but I had very little faith. Two weeks passed with no offer and I expected the worst, but a couple of days later they did put in an offer for an amount far in excess of my expectation!
We paid a deposit on one of the new build houses, which would provide the space we needed. The help to buy funding made the purchase price affordable (just) then unexpectedly we were offered a generous gift from a relative. They told us “We have this money for you, just let us know when you need it.” Wow! What could we say to that?
We still faced challenges as the new build project met with numerous delays and our new house was still not ready by November, five months after we had agreed the sale of the flat. The builder was not able to offer a firm date for us to move and we were left with no option, after speaking to our buyers, other than to move out of our flat without a fixed date.
We moved out of our flat on the 29th November 2015 in faith that it would all work out for us. This was a testing and trying time. All four of us moved into a hotel and lived there for 10 days! After this time, it was too expensive to stay any longer and a lovely couple from the church took us in. This was amazing and the support from the church was incredible. Approaching Christmas, the “Help to Buy” money was delayed and it started to look as though we would not be able to move in until New Year. The church prayer chain prayed for us and it was amazing to know that many people were praying for us along with some other generous offers of support.
Eventually the money did come in and we moved on the 17th December. At the time of writing we have been living in the house almost two months and we really love it. It is ideal for us, we couldn’t have asked for a better. I am constantly reminded of God’s answer to prayer, I can’t help but be reminded! The moral of the story, for me, is that you shouldn’t give up when you are praying for something that seems impossible for God to do. Remember, it does say in the Bible that “with God all things are possible” (Mathew 19. 26)
Mark.
12th February 2016