The God Of All Comfort

Funny how when you look at pictures of an area, you get a preconceived idea of just what the whole region will look like.  Online you see pictures of homes that are in your price range with a nice piece of property – perhaps even having a little stream running right through your backyard.  Ah…

Gary and I were just sure that once we moved to the Bend, Oregon area and actually spent some quality time looking that we’d find just the perfect house (Becoming Small-Towners (Almost)).  We had gotten the name of a realtor in the area that was recommended by a friend, and he was patient-beyond-patient with us.

Day after day that first week we were out looking around.  When our realtor couldn’t accompany us personally, he was kind enough to provide us with listings in a certain area so at least we could drive by and take a look at the outside of them.

But what was going on?  Why couldn’t we find our home?  Where were all the homes with property with great views of the mountains?  Well, they were there – just waaaayyyy outside the city.

We really did feel like we were ready to become small-towners, but us small-towners needed to be close to modern conveniences.  We discovered that if you wanted to be near modern conveniences, you were going to be paying a lot more for your home.  Who would have thought?  (Yes, I’m being facetious.)

During one of our “whine-mode” days our realtor kindly explained to us that most likely the reason we were having such difficulties was because we had preconceived ideas of just what we would now be living in.  He was very straightforward in explaining that it just wasn’t going to happen.  We were getting very deflated, and when Gary and I become deflated, we become very irritable with each other.

Not a good way to start our new season, that’s for sure.

Finally we decided we just needed to set a deadline to choose a house, so we did.  On our deadline date we decided on a brand new home in a little town outside of Bend called Redmond.  Yes, it did have a wonderful view of the mountains, but no property.  There went my dream of having a couple dogs roaming around the countryside freely.

But we had been praying about where the Lord wanted us, and really believed that He was putting together everything for us on that beautiful home, so I did repent of my selfishness.

1. Gary was adamant that he wanted our home to have air conditioning.  Although Central Oregon can get quite cold in the winters, the summers can get really hot – in the 100’s.  But this house didn’t have A/C, and the builder said “no” he wasn’t going to put it in for us.  What now?  We prayed, and I felt like we should ask if the builder would pay 1/2.  He agreed!
2. Our new home had just a small deck in the back where you could sit out and look at the mountainside.  We were concerned because it was so small that you couldn’t really get Jeffrey and his wheelchair out there.  The builder agree to expand the deck for us, with us just paying for the materials.
3. Most homes (in general) really don’t have very wide doorways/hallways.  Again, it was usually very difficult for Jeffrey to wheel around inside without banging into everything.  This house had huge doorways, and extra wide hallways.
4. Another issue we had concerns about were the doorknobs on all the doors.  They were – well, doorknobs!  Jeffrey really had difficulty turning a doorknob, and we needed to get him to the point where he could be more independent and get outside when he wanted to without having one of us open the doors for him.  The builder agreed to switch out all the knobs to lever-locks, and he did it free of charge!
5. And the property – although not very big – was kind of sloped around the whole house, which made Gary and I believe that once all the landscaping was put in Jeffrey could get all around the house by himself with his wheelchair.

Yes, clearly the Lord was giving us more and more confirmation that this was going to be our new home, and we really did start to get excited!  We were told we could move in by the end of July which would be perfect.  That way we would be settled and have plenty of time to get Jeffrey all set up for school.  Thank You, Lord!