A New Normal

Did you know that sometimes life doesn't go the way that you think it will?

It's true. :)

Sheesh. Life sure has not been quite what I anticipated it looking like the last few months. Sometimes I feel like I don't even recognize my life.

And that's okay. It really is.

Three months ago, I really didn't think that selling the house would be a problem. Our realtor had assured us that our house would be easy. -- And I couldn't think that it would be anything but that. We have a beautiful home. We bought it lower than market value and we've done TONS of work and upgrading since we bought it. It's in a fabulous neighborhood. In a cul-de-sac. I knew that we'd have to sell it for less than what we bought it for, but we had built up some equity and had some room to negotiate.

However, as the months have passed, things are not what we expected. The housing market has continued to decline with the onset of winter and we are steadily running out of our "cushion" as our house just sits empty and we continue to drop the price lower and lower.  We simply can't keep doing what we're doing.

Something's gotta give.

So. The winds of change our coming our way and it's frustrating, but we're resigned to it.

Our realtor told us that we'd have to drop the price by another almost $15,000 to get it to move quickly. We can't afford to do that. We've thought about renting it out but we're hundreds of miles away and, without going into the details, we just don't feel like that's a viable option for us.

So we're going to do a short sale. A decision that we have really, really struggled with, but as we've cried and prayed about it, we've realized that we are yet another family hit by the difficult economy.

I've shed a lot of tears over, "Maybe we made the wrong decision in coming here." But, in the end, I don't think we did. We made this decision so that Nels could move forward with his career. So that we would be able to spend more time together as a family. And things are what they are. We could not have anticipated the future and we're here now.

And even though we're disappointed with some of our plans being turned on their heads, we're still really excited for the future that we have here. We are learning some important lessons.

Namely, what real faith is and that sometimes life just doesn't go the way you expect it to. That doesn't mean that the Lord doesn't love you. That doesn't mean that you've done anything wrong. That doesn't mean that He isn't there.

It's just life.

All part of us learning what is most important and seeing things from the proper perspective. This is part of our experience here. And we're learning. Slowly.

So. We're moving forward. Cutting our losses.

And finding a way to move on and settle in here. In our new life. In a new "normal". :)