Settle in, grab a hot tea and get ready for our novel. In this world that is getting darker and scarier every day, we wanted to share some good news and a story of hope. Our Pastor, Kirk Bowman began speaking of a revelation that he had had from Isaiah 61.7, and began a teaching series called Double with Joy. Basically, it is was proclaiming Gods promise to restore to us everything the enemy has stolen. Not just restoring what was taken, but restoring double. This teaching became the vision for our Churchs 25th anniversary, which at that time was two years away. At Christmas time, 2012, we filled out a card stating what we envisioned for our family by 2014. We wrote on the card We are believing for the sale of our home in Waynesville, and moving into our new home in Candler. We are believing for a higher level of peace and joy for our family. We brought the card home and hung it in our kitchen. And so the story begins... Almost 2 years ago today, we found the house we currently live in. It was absolutely our dream home, with a pond, an amazing yard and trails through the woods that the kids could play in. We were living in a townhouse in Biltmore Park that we had to move into after our home of 5 years was found to have toxic mold. We were devastated to find that the mold was so severe that the entire bottom part of our house would have to be gutted down to the floor joists, including the kitchen, and we would have to move out while the work was done, which took 6 months. We were also denied any insurance coverage, so we had to cash in retirement savings, etc. to pay for the work and to relocate. We hated Biltmore Park, but were thankful to have a healthy place to go, as the mold exposure had made us all very sick. I had been diagnosed with probable MS, as I have brain lesions (explains a lot huh?!) and was having severe motor skill impairment and vision issues and was progressively getting worse. We all had respiratory issues and could not figure out how a family that really took care of ourselves was always so sick. The stress of finances, plus having 5 people live in a 2 bedroom townhouse, plus some other relational issues took its toll, and Dan and I began to have serious communication problems in our marriage. We began to fight and argue a lot. We have always been two people who are best friends and can get through anything with humor, but there wasnt a lot of laughter during this time. The kids were also stressed and arguing and everyone was just on edge. We began to look for a house in Asheville, knowing how difficult that it would be to find one without selling our Waynesville house, which had been remediated, (had all the mold removed and rebuilt), but we had the kids in school in Asheville and this is where our church was, so our dream was really to live in Asheville. We decided to go look around anyway...plus I love looking at the cool things people do with their houses! We stumbled across a property that we knew was the one, but had no idea how to make the deal work. We offered to lease to own the property until we could sell our Waynesville house, and were told no. So, we went back to living in the townhouse, trying to make the best of our situation. I dont mean to sound unthankful. We were very blessed to have a home to go to. We were just in such a negative place that we were struggling to find our positivity. We were called a couple months later by the owners of the house, who said they would consider a lease to own, if we put down a significant nonrefundable deposit. We prayed and prayed and somehow found the money to do so. We really felt like we were supposed to be in this house, so we stepped out in faith and signed the two year lease, praying for the sale of our house in Waynesville. Dan started working on our bank financing after we had been in the house for a couple months, and long story short...WE CLOSED ON THE HOUSE TODAY! I cannot tell you what a relief it is to actually own this house now! Every time we started to do some repair or project, we always were worried about what would happen if we had to leave. It would be a tall order to move 3 chicken coops, a bee yard and a backyard meeting area. But we proclaimed Gods promises over this property. We declared favor and every time we doubted, we just had to give it to God. We have more peace, happiness and joy now. Certainly not just becasue of a house, but because we held together as a family, even when it would have been so easy to just give up. Our kids actually hang out again, although I will not say that it is always peaceful. Belle and Canaan still make me want to run away from home at times! We are all healthy. I still struggle with lung issues occasionally, and I still have to get MRIs every 6 months, but my lesions are not progressing and I am 80% back to normal (or as normal as I can get!) Canaan still struggles with an undiagnosed learning and social disability, which we do feel is due to his levels of exposure to the mold at such a young age (there hasnt been enough research on mold for a neurologist to be able to say that it could cause all the issues that we had, but with in 2 months of being out of the house with mold, Canaans teachers called us in for a conference to ask what the heck we were doing differently, as he was making huge progress for the first time, and his occupational therapist was baffled at the difference). We are not just happy, but content. It was a long journey for us, and because of the things that we walked through, we are so much more appreciative of the little things. We found our peace, we found our joy and we found our forever home. This may seem like such a small thing to some people, but our entire lives have been one miracle after the other, and this is just one chapter of our story. We are so thankful to the awesome friends and family that supported us along the way. And we are so thankful to our Pastors, for pushing us to step out, proclaim those promises and stop doubting the miraculous works that the Lord does. Double with Joy, Yall!!!!!
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 02:35:07 +0000