It just keeps on coming!

This is just a note to state how lavish God's love of us can be sometimes . . . okay, all the time. Our deal is that we are only aware of it some of the time. This is one of those times where I am aware of it, seeing it, feeling it all over the place. In addition to Chris' last entry about how amazingly gracious God has been to Chris and I over this whole house selling process, I have more to add. Our move-out on Friday went amazingly well. We loaded up 117 boxes into Chris' dad's truck and trailer and brought them down to the ABF terminal to be shipped to Boston on one of their freight trucks. We had reserved 8' of space, but fit everything into 5' - saving us $450!! Thanks to Ryan and Jeff's help, the whole thing was done by noon and without too much sweat lost. (Here we are with our packed goods).
To top off the day, our realtor called us that evening to let us know that she and the buyer's realtor had crunched the final numbers and Chris and I were going to owe $1500 less than she had originally estimated! Now we owe almost exactly what our tax return will cover. Since we filed early, we received the refund this past Friday - just in time for our closing next Friday. It is so amazingly wonderful how all of the timing and finances have worked out in our favor that I know of only One who could have orchestrated it all. He loves us. He loves all of us . . . and if we let Him, LET HIM, He lavishes love on us more broadly, deeply and elaborately than we could have ever dreamed of or expected.

Does this mean that when things are not "going in our favor" that He is not loving us? No. I am not saying this at all. It means that He is trying to get us to go another way. Chris and I wanted to sell this house so badly last summer. We put it on the market in late March, thinking it would sell by June, and . . . nothing. Our plans to leave Colorado Springs by August were dashed, we felt let down by the Lord, and we felt that we had misunderstood His will for us. Not at all. We had just imposed a timing on it that was not His. So we prayed, we waited and we planned to be ready so that when He revealed His timing, we could follow. When I was spontaneously let go from my job 3 weeks before Christmas, Chris and I did not wallow. We did not sit and pout about finances and the timing of the loss. We simply put the plans that God had revealed to us before into action by preparing the house to go on the market again and making arrangements to move to Boston - this time whether the house sold or not. We knew the plans, and He had revealed the timing.

Start to finish - now spanning a year from the plan's revelation to its completion - this has been an experience that I would not have planned for myself, but one that I would now not trade for anything else in the world. Hard at times. Exhausting at times. Amazing in the end.