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When You Just Want to Throw in the Towel

By on Thursday, April 27, 2017
towel

Yesterday while preparing dinner for my family, I received two phone calls with horrible news. Both of them real estate-related. One of which could have a devastating effect on my family directly. I can’t get into the details now, but let’s just say the information packed a pretty good combination of jab and right hook that sent me reeling. 

While working through the information, I ended up not even eating dinner. Plus I had to run out last night with no answers. I had a call back for a professional theater company and had to pull myself together and play make believe while all of this was swirling in my head.

I woke up this morning not wanting to face what seem to be insurmountable odds. It’s moments like this that test your fortitude as a person, and in the past these very moments have sent me into a downward spiral of depression. 

However my wife was reading her Bible this morning and in her daily reading she happened to be in Luke 11 and read this passage:

5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
As I laid in bed she shared this with me, and it helped me to lift up my head, albeit slowly, and start the day. Somewhere along the way I allowed someone to convince me that ultimately what is meant to be will happen easily, and if you encounter something with obstacles or difficulties, then it must not be meant to be. 
But this isn’t how life works. Things that are worth it are not handed to you, no one owes you anything. In fact, the things you want the most, usually beats you to your knees several times throughout the process. But through persistence you can overcome. 
Our desire to move is not a selfish, materialistic pursuit. We are buying a very modest home for our family. So modest in fact that the home inspector thought we were buying it as an investment property. I guess he couldn’t imagine a real estate agent wanting to buy it as a primary dwelling. In addition, we want to open our home to an exchange student who will be attending the school operated by my home church. 
And as you may know, our history with real estate has not been a very good one. See here, and here for more details.
Thankfully, I just received a promising phone call that may be the result of a ton of prayers, but I won’t count my chickens before they hatch. As I have said numerous times I will not be sure whether we are buying this new house until we actually get the keys.
The question I asked so many times last night was “why would God allow us to get this far to have everything fall apart?” And I think the response I am in the process of receiving is, “How bad do you want it? Are you willing to fight for it?”
There are going to be moments in life that you just want to throw in the towel like I do right now, but you never know, you may just have one hay-maker left. And as I said to my wife when we first received the devastating news, if I have to go down, I’m going to go down fighting. 
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