Blown Away

          Last year we had our house on the market starting in January. We had 17 showings and two open houses, but we didn't get our first offer till May 25th, 2012. It was exhausting keeping the house in what I felt needed to be a "state of perfection". "The tidier the house, the quicker the sale" is the general widsom concerning selling a home. It was not something I have been looking forward to at all. Last week, while decluttering and preparing to show the house, I had a thought. If God wanted to, He could just blind a person's eyes to anything they wouldn't like...to the clutter, to the spit up stains on the carpet (or the ear wax our dog rubs into it), to the cloudy windows in our bedroom...to all of it. Last year, no matter how perfectly I tried to keep the house, we still had no offers after 5 months of hard labor. We then recieved two offers within a week of each other. I hadn't done anything any differently...it was all just a matter of, I believe, God's timing.
          This year on May 25th, we listed our current home. We had two showings yesterday, an offer by 6pm, and papers to sign for the sale this morning. I am blown away by this! It happened so quickly that my head is still spinning. God gave us a great realtor who happens to be a very hard-worker and is always ready to serve. (I'm not sure our house would even be listed by now if another realtor had only been given the green light for listing it on a Friday night of a holiday weekend.) While waiting for all the paperwork to be finalized through the relocation company, we'd shown the house three times ourselves.  Three times, we had suffered the disappointment of the buyers being put off by various things...the most common was the proximity of our next door neighbors (we are only separated by a driveway). However, yesterday, someone was able to see past that the same way we did.
            The pressure is off. My fears are being blown away...fears that our house would be on the market for two years (like it was before we bought it), fears of double house payments,  fears of a long distance relationship, fears of having a very challenging summer with five children. The Holy Spirit is coming like a "mighty rushing wind" (Acts 2:2), and my burdened, over-heated heart is shouting "Hallelujah! "