Welcome Back

It’s been too long, y’all. Like waaaaay too long. I have felt kind of lost hah.

As I sit here typing, I am currently in my kids’ room watching them play. Kids? Yep you heard that right. Last time we talked I only had one little boy. Now he is 3, and I have another one. Crazy, right? 

I am also sitting in my new home that we built last year which, if you’ve been here for a while you know, felt like an impossible dream for my husband and I.

I don’t really know where to start, so I guess we will start at the beginning. Grab your favorite blanket and settle in.

It began in 2018 before we had our first son. My husband and I talked, and it was a very real desire to have our home. Especially for my husband because he had lived in a trailer his whole life (not knocking living in a trailer at all, that was just how he personally felt). 

We knew at the time there was no way we could afford it, so the conversation ended, but we never stopped praying. 

I wrote in my daily journal, I don’t know how many times, that we would build our dream home. I knew God was faithful, and the Bible says ask and you shall receive. I took that to heart, and every day I declared it would happen. 

Fast forward to 2019.

I talked with banks, and it wasn’t gonna happen.

We didn’t have enough money and, because he was self employed, that made it even harder.

I started praying again.

I talked with the guy that does our taxes and a loan office to see what our income needed to look like, and we worked our tail off to get to that by the next tax year.

2020 rolls around.

We have everything lined up.

Talked with the loan office.

Got our taxes sent in ASAP.

It was now a waiting game.

Then the whole country shut down.

That caused the first of many delays ahead.

Thank you, CVD19.

So we waited, and waited some more, and some more.

I called about once a week or more (yes, I was that person).

The guy would tell me to update things, send in more stuff, and keep waiting.

Finally, it had been almost 2 months of what was supposed to be a 2 week process and still no answer, so I called.

The gentleman informed me that we had been rejected a few days prior to our call, and he simply forgot to call me. You can imagine my frustration at this point, especially since we did exactly what he told us we needed to do. Normally I would have been upset, but something in my soul said it would be okay.

“Don’t Tread On Me” by We The Kingdom had been playing all morning so I was already in fight mode, haha. I was doing laundry prior to the call and just asking for His will to be done and for His favor to go before us.

I hung up the phone and immediately called the bank a friend had recommended to me. 

They took all of our info and said he would get back to me.

Less than a week later, we had an answer.

Yes, you read that right.

What I didn’t know was that our first let down was actually God setting up something so much better.

That was the middle of April 2020 and by the end of May 2020, less than 2 months later, we had our money.

We had already begun breaking ground because it was going to take a lot of work to get the ground like we wanted. Our neighbor, another amazing blessing from God, was handling all the groundwork.

Of course it rained more than it ever has in my lifetime, or at least that’s what it felt like, haha. It took 2 months just to get our driveway ready, and we couldn’t do anything with our home’s foundation without being able to drive out there.

Memorial Day 2020, it was beautiful outside. The first sunny day we had had in months. Our neighbor was finally able to get to the driveway and planned to have it finished that day. Water lines, everything had been marked. Well, we got a call around 10 am that he had busted a water line. The main waterline. It looked like a geyser shooting out of the ground. We immediately called the water company, and they sent out the men on call that day, who I am sure were thrilled about that. haha. 

The whole day’s plans were shot.
No more digging which meant no driveway for a while.

They finally got the water fixed, and he was able to finish the driveway that weekend. My husband and I drove up and down that thing I don’t know how many times, haha.

Gravel trucks were sent to dump tons of gravel, and we were finally getting somewhere. Or at least that’s what I thought. 

We got the foundation ready and the concrete poured. 

Then finally, in August, we started building walls.

Honestly it felt like a dream.

I kept pinching myself.

Oh, and I forgot to add that on the Memorial Day that the water pipe busted, I was late getting there…because I had just found out I was pregnant with our second child which was a surprise. We planned on having baby #2, but we weren’t planning on it until later in the summer. 

Hello, God.

I don’t recommend building a home and being pregnant at the same time, but hey it’s a fun story to tell now.

So anyway I wasn’t much help during the whole process.

My husband was amazing and spent countless hours working to get our home built, and now we had a deadline. We wanted to be in the house before the baby got here which meant come January 2021, it needed to be done.

We built walls, got the roof on, and waited almost 3 months for windows that should have been there in 4-6 weeks. Without the windows we couldn’t insulate, which meant we couldn’t hang sheetrock, which meant we were at a stand still. Oh, and when the windows finally came, they were the wrong ones. But at that point this pregnant woman didn’t care what they looked like, just put those dang things in.

Things started to pick up after that.

The sheetrock was hung, the painters came in, cabinets got set, and my wonderful husband spent the entire weekend putting down our floor. It was starting to look like a house. The holidays threw a wrench in the plans because who wants to work in the freezing cold while it’s snowing at holiday time?

But it was crunch time, y’all.

This baby was coming, ready or not, and at the first of January, we didn’t even have carpet in the rooms. We were still waiting on the outside to be done.

Well, fast forward to January 11, 2021.

One week before my scheduled delivery with baby boy #2.

The guy was coming to do the final inspection. We needed to pass, and we also needed him to grant us a letter of occupancy so that we could actually live there. The stair railing still wasn’t done. They still had to finish the stone and siding on the front porch and garage. It was a long shot but we were hoping since it was our home, and we weren’t planning to sell, he would let us move. Without that approval we couldn’t move in, and he wasn’t coming back until the next month so our deadline to move in before the baby wouldn’t happen.

We waited and waited for him to get there.

My husband said if he didn’t come by lunch, he probably wasn’t coming.

Lunch time rolled around and still nothing.

I still wasn’t giving up.

I said, “Lord, you know the situation, I am asking you to grant us favor.”

Around 2 pm I heard the driveway door go off, and it looked like his vehicle.

He came inside. He walked around with my dad. Axl was following them being as cute as he could be, and I’m thinking “Yes, son, work your magic,” haha. My dad explained the situation to him with hopes that he would give us the go ahead to move in. Again we waited. I swear it felt like he was there for hours even though it was less than 30 minutes, haha.

He left, and my dad came in with the answer we wanted to hear.

We could move in. 

After hearing “no,” “wait,”, and “not yet,” so many times for so long, I felt a sigh of relief.

Now understand our master bathroom wasn’t even finished yet. 

Our garage was full so we couldn’t use it either.

But I didn’t care, we slept there that night.

It was February before everything finally got done but again, I didn’t care. 

We were home with our new baby, and that’s all that mattered to me. Muddy front yard and all.

Why did I tell you all this?

To remind you that everything isn’t what it seems.

From the beginning of this journey it was one obstacle after another, but we both said when we started that we would trust God no matter what. And we did. At every turn we said, “God it’s your house, and we trust you.”

Sometimes, things look impossible.

Sometimes, you ask and pray and ask and pray more, yet you see nothing.

Don’t lose heart. Even when we don’t see it, God is working on our behalf. He is faithful. Even though to some it’s just a house, to me it is a constant reminder that God is faithful to do what He says.

There is so much more to this story, but we’d be here all day so I’ll leave you with this.

Keep asking.

Keep believing.

Keep hoping.

He is the God of turning impossible things into possible things.

Don’t give up.

He sees you and won’t leave you.

Simply trust Him.

Editor -Rebekah Pendergrast