Monday, June 8, 2009

Overwhelmed and painting

So much has happened in the last 4 days! I'm still overwhelmed by it all!

First, Saturday, I learned how to paint and painted my first picture ever in my entire life (See left). In case you need help figuring out what the heck that is, it's me. I'm a dead tree. Or I was at least. But by the blood shed on the cross, I came back to life. I haven't painted a live tree yet, still working on that. But you can see a few blades of green grass beginning to grow where the blood from the cross, carried by the river, has begun new growth, new healing in the tree.

This painting is literally my first time ever picking up a paint brush in my life. I think I might take up painting, it's quite therapeutic and sometimes the therapist needs therapy.

Second, Thursday night I met this guy named Scott (who deserves a whole post himself- but I'm not going to dwell on him). He told me about the house next to him that was for sale. Keri and I will be looking for a place to live in a few months and we thinking about a house, although I wasn't really thinking about buying a house. We drove by Friday night and Keri fell in love with it. She saw the balcony and loved it. My parents and I drove by again on Saturday afternoon and took a look around the outside, my dad found a few problems but reserved his opinion until he saw the inside.

Sunday morning, a bunch of us went to Bethel to hear Craig preach. It was during this service, hearing him preach (although I hear him preach weekly), that I fully realized that this man was going to be my pastor. He said later to me that apparently I smiled at him the whole time and the look on my face said "pastor" to him. I knew that I was smiling becuase God was talking to me the whole time and just hugging me with His love. I knew before I went to Bethel that morning that it was important for me to be there, to hear Craig preach even though I had heard him many times before. And it was that morning that God pointed at Craig and said "this is your pastor" to me.

We then went to The Homeplace for lunch and we had a lovely lunch and a very nice waitress. She recognized me from when I worked at Mill Mountain in Salem and we talked. I talked with her longer than I have talked with my waitress in a long time. Not because I'm rude or anything, just because they tend to have other tables besides mine and not many actually strike up an actual conversation. I, for some reason, told her that we were going to look at houses that day and I was nervous about actually buying a house. She chatted some and then went away. When she dropped off our check, she wrote down her name, number, and weekday job. Her name is Linda and she does Morgages! Gee, does God want me to buy a house? I still don't know. But now I'm willing to look with a more open mind and perhaps get some estimates and numbers and see how to proceed.

Sunday afternoon, we finally saw the inside of the house. Sean Turk took us over. For a single guy, this kind of "fixer-upper" house would be fine. However, it is not, at this point, actually livable. This house needs all new windows, all kinds of work done in the basement, and attic (insulation and such) and it needs re-wiring, and that's just a start. Basically, it would need to be "flipped" as Scott says, which means about $30,000 worth of renovations before we could even move in. Other than that, it's an okay looking 2 story, 3 tiny bedroom, 2 bath (only 1 working though) house.

As Keri was standing on the porch with Scott, he mentions that the house across the street is also for sale. We look over and see this horribly ugly Pepto pink house. I mean, this puppy is hideous! We sucked it up and look inside. It's a nice little 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom (although one is in the basement) house. It needs to some work. For example, it has white carpet that needs to come up, a kitchen that needs help as far as the cabinets and such. It's a nice first house, built in 1948, 1,043 square feet, nice front porch, carport (although that is currently pink), 70 x 133 Corner Lot, and a nice back yard, with nice garden space.

I'm praying very hard. I'm still not sure what to do, but I'll call and get some info on what to do and how to proceed. I'm not ill at ease, neither to I have perfect peace about it yet. But I think that's mostly coming from me. I'm afraid. I've made some bad financial decisions in that past that I have no desire to relive. I'm just getting my credit score back up to something semi-normal. My brother got a loan and tried to build a house, but then couldn't pay for it. I don't want to end up down that path either. I'm praying hard, I'm seeking wise counsel, and seeking God's face about it. I'm keeping a level head, trying not to get too excited or too stressed out by this whole thing.

2 comments:

Sam and Shelley said...

My day is complete! I have now got my "Piracy Is Our Only Option" daily fix! Seriously, wow, wow, and wow. Lots and lots of cool things going on. I love seeing God work and move!!!!!!!!!

Keri Starr said...

yeaa....this is completely accurate. the last 4 days have been insane!!!!