Walking up from my garage this morning elicited new thoughts. I haven’t moved for 27 years until a month ago. I have known for years the voice of God and also the open door principle.

I felt the urging some time ago to look at this house Lib and I are now in. I played with the thought for some time, but placed it off the table. Then mid-November the prodding came afresh. I told Lib to let’s take a closer look at this house. I called the agent and set up a showing. We found it had been built in 1973. It is brick and is solid. It had been mildly updated, but much updating is still needed in the kitchen, dining and hallway. The doors needed new knobs, but really the whole set of inside doors should be replaced. The flooring was done with a very cheap grade of laminate wood grain flooring. The baseboards, quarter round and door facings had been replaced by someone with just enough experience to cut a piece of wood. They didn’t know much about a measuring tape, though. The bathroom had been completely overhauled with a new tub and it was very fresh and with functional tub, toilet, cabinet and vanity. But the walls are not very likeable. The trim was amateurish. The flooring was not level and upon inspection we found sometime joists had been attacked by termites, but had been repaired and treated. There were other floor joists that needed new supports, which I had the owner repair before purchase. The previous owner had had new double pane windows installed, but two already had that foggy look and I had them fix those as well.

Sounds like I should have walked away from the needs this house has, but here’s what happened. Lib wanted the house and I did as well for the fact that it has a half-acre yard with a huge unattached garage and paved driveway. I later found the garage was once a welding shop business by the previous owner. He and his wife had passed on and the children were selling it as sort of an estate sale. They, being the owners then, were willing to sell at a giveaway price. It had been reduced by ten thousand dollars. All I will say is when I heard the selling price I was astounded to find it well under $100 grand.

Looking at the state of the house and the state of my previous home didn’t take much for Lib and I to agree to offer whatever the owners were asking. Problem was the day we looked at it we found there was another interested party. Problem one. Yet I felt to go ahead with the offer.

Later that day I was told to secure the offer I would need to get approved for the loan. That was not a problem. The next morning after church Lib and I went to a mortgage loan representative and were approved on the spot. We stopped by on the way back home to look at the inside of the garage and the realty agent told me then that the other prospective party had declined to place a bid. Now it was up to Lib and me.

Monday morning was a holiday from work, so I had gone out to get something to eat at the local Piggly Wiggly and decided to stop at my neighbor’s business across the street. When I asked him was he interested he looked at me like I was pulling his leg and it took several acknowledgements to get him to believe I wasn’t. He asked me how much and I told him. On the spot he offered to buy at the price I asked. Deal. I’d made an offer, gotten approved and sold my house in a span of three days. On the fourth day I was moving out of my house into this house.  I had told Libby when God moves He can move quickly so she should be prepared.

The provocation to look at this house again was God speaking to me. Once I looked and spoke what I was hearing, things happened so quickly Libby could not believe it. Doors opened left and right. We’ve been in this house paying rent to live here from the middle of November until closing and now for almost a month since closing.

Surprisingly I do not miss my two acres down the road seven tenths of a mile. I feel very much at home here. I’m sitting in my living room tapping this out on my laptop while the Contemporary Christian music channel plays on Pandora, feeling the blessing of God upon this house.

It’s the little things that count as well, which to some would seem not important and

Veteran’s Day Parade in Morehead City NC

material. I gave up a 1955 BelAir Chevy when I gave my heart to God in 1977 because I felt Him tell me it was my god. It was a true statement. Now all those years later I feel that owning the car I’d always wanted was a gift and now I have a garage to put it in and cover it up so I can take it out and drive it and enjoy it. And Libby and I do enjoy it with the top down breezing down the highway.

Still Libby has a nice car and I have yet an old beater of an S10 for hauling stuff around in. We both have wonderful jobs and I hope to retire the end of this year.

I know there are people who think they hurt me because I hurt them, but in reality I can’t be hurt. The love of God is strong on and in me. I have forgiven them. I release them to God. Libby and I are recognized for our love for each other in our church and we’ve developed new friends and we have become a part of the community of Richlands. In all the years I’ve lived here I’ve not felt that till we moved into this house just a month ago. Strange as it may seem, I’d never felt this way.

Yes, I admit my decisions hurt some people close to me, but I’ve found from other friends and family that their viewpoint was I was not a well man then. To me I was in a fight for my life. I knew I was dying and I had to get out of it. I made only one mistake. Not having done it sooner.

So my thought as I walked up from the garage this morning? It is that I’m “home” for the first time in a long time and I have the love of a woman who truly knows unconditional love and demands nothing of me, but to be myself. I ask nothing of her other than to not change who she is. She’s everything I pictured in my early teens when I asked God what my wife would be like. I can’t marry her as yet because of the liberality with which the judge meted out “punishment” on me in alimony to my previous relationship. Under the laws of the state of NC I am bound to that, but my heart is unbound in the realm of the spirit and I have all I ever wanted in life and cannot be brought down, not because of me, but by the help and blessings of God am I standing. That’s my thoughts this morning.