I know I am not alone in this strange housing crisis, and there are those on the news that tell us we are coming out of the housing crisis, but I sure feel like I am still in the deep deep dark dark deep dark pit of the housing crisis. Allow me to elaborate…

At the end of September of 2009, my husband and I put our house on the market. Ah, what high hopes we had then. My hubby started his new job in January, which meant that he spent much of the week staying about an hour away, and came home only one day during the week and on the weekends. Did I mention that we have three young children? We did the long distance thing until the school year was done, then the kids and I packed up a bunch of stuff and we all moved into my in-laws house. We stayed there all summer, with nary a nibble on our house, which was still on the market. As the summer drew to a close, we finally had our first offer on the house. Of course, it was a…creative offer. It was complicated, but it involved the buyer moving in early and securing financing after a special date further into the fall. I know, I know, you’re saying that it sounds dicey, and I agree, but we hadn’t had any other possibilities, so we decided to gamble and accept the offer.

Now we come to present day. We discovered last week that it is extremely unlikely that the buyer will be able to secure financing and qualify for a loan to buy our house. But she is living there currently. We are definitely in a pickle. We technically aren’t due to close on the so-called offer until mid-January, so we have a little time to wait it out and see what is going to play out. But the chance of actually selling our house to the current “buyer” is very small.

It’s a tricky business. Do we get rid of her and hope to find someone else to rent the house? Do we rent a place ourselves now that we know we won’t be able to buy a house of our own? Do we go back to the long-distance scenario that we did last year? And since the current arrangement is all under the guise of an “early move-in agreement” as part of a purchase agreement, once that purchase agreement expires, so do the terms of the situation with the buyer. How should we go forward with any of this? Are you getting a headache yet, Gentle Reader? ‘Cause I certain have felt sick about it all. Unfortunately, there’s no resolution to this story, no denouement or unravelling of all the twisty strings. I wish I could tell you that it all ends up great, everybody wins, and things are even better than we could have imagined. And in my head, I know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, but I gotta tell ya, if He would just work those things out a little faster, that would make it a lot easier. That probably sounds whiney, and I am trying to adjust my attitude, I just don’t have it there quite yet. It is hard to see the way God is going to work this all out, even though I know He is active in the world and in my life. Patience is something I have to keep on learning, over and over again, my entire stinkin’ life. And here I thought I had already learned a lot about it from having kids. Sheeshkabobs. Guess I’ve got further to go than I thought I did.

I am keenly aware of the ways my situation could be immeasureably more dificult than it is. I hesitate to be honest about how hard this is for us, especially knowing how dire other people’s lives are. There are many people who don’t have family to crash with, who don’t have a supportive husband to help share the burden, and who don’t have a group of friends who sympathize and try to help as much as they can. I do have those things. So should I shut up and quit feeling sorry for myself? Probably. And I will. But I just had to have a week of being down-in-the-dumps. I will do my best to rally, Indulgent Reader, and I hope that future posts will be highly optimistic and generally uplifting and positive. *Here you must imagine the sound of someone blowing an enthusiastic raspberry.*