Third times the charm!!

    Well, after what seems like the longest roller coaster ride we've ever been on in our lives, our search for our next house finally appears as though it's over!  If you follow this blog, or talk to any of our families, you probably already have a fairly good understanding of just what Kelli and I have been through.  For those of you who don't know however, here is a brief recap of the past three months:

December-thought we found the perfect house only to find out the taxes put our mortgage 
                  out of reach.

January-slipped into a minor state of depression but dusted ourselves off and got back on
               the horse, found house number two as the month came to a close.

February-house number two, although being much more affordable, was much older also
                and the home inspection brought up a few issues neither us or the seller wanted
                to repair, deal fell through and again, minor state of depression.

Today- after dusting ourselves off one more time, we decided to give it one more shot
            and found house number three as February came to a close.  This one meets our
            price criteria, passed the home inspection, and is scheduled to close in just
            21 days!

     Although this is a very condensed version, you get the idea of how things have been.  Even though we have only lived on the West side of the divide for a little more than three months, this house hunt combined with Kelli's job search has made it feel more like three years!  I am happy to report though that not only have we found the right house for us, she also found a job the same week!  She went to work for a Montana native periodontist on the north end, there's only four of them on staff including the dentist so the office has a very good feel to it and she is really happy to have found it.  She told me through this process, which has included something like 7 working interviews as well as probably double that many sit down interviews, that she figures the closest thing she's going to find that will compare to her Montana jobs is a Montana dentist working in Spokane.  She lucked out and found what appears to be exactly what she was hoping for!
     Throughout this process of searching for our next home and trying to find a job for Kelli, we have been through more ups and downs than either one of us can remember.  There were more than a few tears of frustration shed over these ordeals by both of us, yes even me, of course if you know me that probably does'nt surprise you:)  Along the way we continued to remind ourselves that everything happens for a reason and the way both the house and the job fell into place simultaneously has us believing that even more!  We both know that God has our entire lives under control, but we are no different than anyone else in the fact that we have this constant inner desire to attempt to control our own fate.  I believe this is probably the most common fault of all of us as it is very easy to forget that everything is always under control!  This may sound strange, or you may be nodding your head in agreement while reading this, but I truly believe that this entire process was part of God's plan all along.  What we didn't understand until recently was that in the grand scheme of things everything we've been through since the move has only made us stronger and more faithful. 
     Of course I'm not saying that we are perfect by any means, but I do think that months or maybe years from now we will look back on this and realize just how much we grew through this process.  And if your still a little sceptical about whether or not God had a hand in this, less than a week after we signed the buy/sell on our house I contacted our landlord to let her know we found a house and would be moving out at the end of March.  She listed the house on a Tuesday and that night she had someone set up to come look at it.  I met the couple at the house to show it to them and they were an elderly couple who told me they had been in their current rental for years.  Just a few days prior to this house being listed again, they were informed their landlord's house was going into foreclosure and they had to be out by the end of March!  Devastated by the shock of having to pack up and move on extremely short notice, they were extremely grateful to have found this house, they had nowhere else to go.  As that elderly couple left that day and I fought back tears of joy, I know God was smiling, and I could feel him telling me everything is under control!

Remember, if you look back and think about it I would bet we all could find that every crisis we've ever dealt with brought with it a positive outcome in some way!