Ending Another Chapter of Life

Well, we closed on our house yesterday; and I must say we were super duper happy to have that adventure all behind us.

Daniel and I have had a total of 9 different addresses in 7 years. It would seem as though we just are never happy wouldn't it! Well, allow me to back track a little.

After we were first married we rented an apartment for about six months. After that we purchased our first home. THEN One year later we found our "Dream Home" and settled in. It was big, beautiful, white picket fence, American flag, the whole nine yards. We thought we were home forever. Little did we know God had another plan.

15 months after we found our "dream home" We followed God's calling and said goodbye to it and headed to Joplin, MO for Daniel to attend Bible College at Ozark Christian College. We put our house up for sale by owner and it sold in just three weeks. We didn't have a clue what we would do for money (with Daniel being a full time student) and we didn't know where we would live. Not to mention....what do we do with all of our STUFF!

Well, we sold most of the STUFF in a moving sale and gave the rest away. We sold our "nice vehicles" that had those blood sucking payments :-) and for a home... we found a little, ran down, apartment (three bedrooms two baths for $445/mo.). After we moved, God provided me with a job so Daniel could go to school during the week and He provided Daniel with a weekend ministry which not only helped financially but also helped us to make friends, build relationships and have more youth ministry experience.

After one year in that apartment, we rented a little house (900 sq ft) and then went on to purchase our second home right before we found out we were having little Judah.

Then last spring we were called to Nixa. It was a hard move indeed; saying goodbye to many good people and once again leaving a place that had become so comfortable. Judah was one week old on our last Sunday at that church. We moved again, not knowing how we would live on $300 per week from Daniel's ministry, me a homemaker/ homeschooling mother, and Daniel still a full time student.

BUT once again, God has proven faithful. To be honest we are not ones to ever pray for blessing... sorry for those of you who thought we were praying for God to bless you :-( It's not that we don't believe in it or anything like that, we just don't dwell on the blessing part. We know God wants to bless each of us and we feel that our family is blessed with abundance.

We pray that we are in God's will and being fruitful in what we are doing. We pray that we are in the place where He can use us the most. And we have noticed, the blessings just always follow. Now, don't get me wrong. We give all of our worries and cares to God because we know he cares for us (1 Peter) but praying abundant blessings could easily be prayed for people that are in much more devistation than the Gibson family. Like those who are not free to worship our God in their country or those who are faced with the worry of Sex Trafficking each day or little children who are being sold to fight in terrible wars at the age of four. They could use a healthy dose of blessing way before our family! Again, no big deal just not something we personally think much on.

Anyway, off of that soap box... :-) (I have a lot of those 'soap boxes', don't I?)

So back to what I was saying... After we got here and dug into loving people the Lord just started to bless us. First, it was a pay raise for the summer time and then in January of this year Daniel was brought on full time. That is just the financial part of being blessed since our move to Nixa. But I must say that a family of five living on $300/per week can be done by the grace of God!

wheww... off point again, let's move on...

You might have noticed the first line of this post... we were super duper happy to have that adventure all behind us.

Yesterday at the closing we were so happy to have it all said and done. Especially since we had to pay so much money to sell our house. You see, everything was going just fine until we received the appraisal one week before closing. The square footage of our house was 300 sq. feet less than what we paid for it one year ago! 300 sq ft. less than what we had always paid property taxes on. Yep! Someone messed up BIG TIME and there is NOTHING we can do about it.

The lady who messed up so long ago has already been fired. So long story short, we overpaid when we bought it and now the house is worth a lot less. We could sue the people who recorded it wrong but we would much rather believe God's got it under control. And hey, the people buying the house got a great deal; maybe there is a reason they needed a smaller house payment. Only God knows what is going to happen in that families life during the upcoming years.

Another soap box, sorry!

back to the we were happy...

Last night on my way home from a ladies Bible/Book study group, I drove by our house just to take a quick peek at it. The new people were moving in. I didn't think that would bother me at all but it really did.

For just a few moments I was sad knowing that, that home had held our love, joy and tears. It had sheltered our family and kept us warm. Our memories embraced those walls and my children explored life at that home. Silly late night giggles were shared in the girls room and sweet little baby dreams were set loose each night in Judah's room. Many hard decisions were made at that kitchen table, in that kitchen and lots of ministry was shared in that house with lots of people.

All of that is just a memory now. That chapter is over. Oh, those things aren't over, I know. I mean, we continue to have love, giggles, shelter, and sweet baby dreams just here in the Simpson's basement :-) but it is different kind of feeling.

So even though we were so anxious to get it all over with I was surprisingly a little sad to see that chapter end after we started to turn the page. It is a bitter sweet feeling I guess. Funny how that seems to always be the case in life here on Earth. Only when we are made whole with Christ will we feel truly at home; boy won't that be a day of rejoicing!