The ominous feeling of storm clouds moving in paints a pretty decent picture of what life can feel like when you are pursuing your dream. Sometimes it can feel like the entire world is operating in cahoots in order to prevent you from moving forward. But not today.
I woke up this morning feeling positive. Now believe it or not, this isn’t always the case. As much people may think I’m Mr. Motivation, it’s simply not true. In fact, my most challenging motivational task happens before my feet hit the floor every morning. That’s right, sometimes even this guy still struggles with the prospect of facing each day.
Interestingly enough, yesterday was one of those days when I just could not get things going. In order to fully comprehend the situation, I encourage you to go back and read this post.
We had recently been presented with the possibility that we would finally be able to sell our condo to an ACTUAL real estate investor who would allow our tenant to stay put and, more importantly, give us the ability to be free of that debt and move on to find our forever home. As much as being a landlord is not what gets me out of bed in the morning, God has blessed us with a great tenant, and having been displaced ourselves back in 2015 (did you read the post like I told you?), we would never want to be in the position of doing that to someone else. So my wife and I desperately tried not to get our hopes up in case this individual was not interested, but when you feel like the clouds may finally be parting, it’s hard not to imagine what life may be like on the other side.
I’ve often prayed that the Lord would rid me of this albatross because up until now it has kept us from taking the next step as a family. I truly believed that my life would be easier without this huge responsibility and added financial burden. But as I mentioned in my last post, sometimes easier isn’t always best.
Anyway long story long, this person has decided not to buy our property and at first I was angry. Why would God dangle the carrot only to snatch it away from us? Why would He allow me to peek behind the clouds if He had no intention of parting them?
And then it hit me. Thankfully, it hit my wife as well.
Maybe we are not supposed to sell this condo. Maybe God has had a different plan for us all along, and what’s behind those clouds is something entirely different than I anticipated.
It certainly seems that every avenue we have tried has been a dead end so why keep fighting to find a way out? Maybe in some strange way God is actually going to use this property to provide for us someday, whether it be college for our kids, or helping me with a self-employed “retirement plan” or whatever.
Before you start wondering, I’m not proposing to you that I now know what God’s plan is for us. Hardly. I really wish I did. However, I’m now starting to see a little bit a hope for the future, a little ray of sunshine peeking out from behind those clouds. It’s funny that when we pray for clarity, usually it’s because we have a preconceived idea of what life would be like on the other side of this storm, trial, etc. But maybe we’d do ourselves a favor to realize that we may not be ready for what is on the other side and that’s why we’re unable to see clearly.
So with this newfound sense of peace in the midst of the storm, I decided to take a fresh look at our options going forward, to get a sense of what stars need to align in order for us to eventually take the next step. As it turns out, the fact that we have now had this rental for almost 5 years means that our situation is much different than when we first tried to sell the condo back in 2011.
I don’t have concrete answers, and some days I feel my faith hanging on by a thread, but I am thanking God this morning that the clouds, albeit briefly, parted and He allowed me to see what it could be like behind them and that in all likelihood, it’ll be nothing like what I imagined for myself.
