Page 36 - Evidence of Things Unseen

Mercy Amidst Discipline

n interesting thing occurred during our move to this house that I spoke of in the last
Achapter, the house with the security system. I had felt for some time that God would
move us to this town which was called Fort Valley, and I had mentioned it to my wife some
years earlier.
We were home owners previous to this move, having lived in a small, but new home
that had been built for us six years earlier in Perry, Georgia. It was at this home in Perry
that I had been disciplined by God for my covetousness and financial debt, and it was also
here that I had gone into debt again and purchased a brand new Mazda pick-up truck. I had
converted a garage at this house into a family room, doing all the work myself, but spending
a lot of money in the process, money which I did not have, but had to borrow. One of the
reasons we were selling the home was to pay down our debts, which were starting to
become burdensome again.
I had already taken some steps to reduce our debt. The pick-up truck that I felt I just
had to have, I kept for only a couple years, and then I traded it on a used Geo Tracker. I
loved the Tracker. It was a little, sporty, four wheel drive vehicle with a removable soft top.
I loved driving it around with the top off, enjoying the Georgia sunshine and the fresh air.
The Tracker was much less expensive than the pick-up, and I was able to pay for it in full
and get a clear title to it. We had a second car at this time which we were making payments
on.
Our house in Perry sold after being on the market for only thirteen days. We also got
our full asking price for the house, and when we had paid off the debt incurred in
remodeling the garage we had about $6,000 to place as a down payment on another home.
We began looking for homes immediately, and through a strange chain of events we
learned of a house that had been for sale for some time. Thieves had stolen the for sale sign
out of the front yard, and the owner never had the sign replaced. There was no evidence that
this home was even for sale. We contacted the owner, and he had already reduced the price
tremendously, for the home market was depressed in this particular town, with many
homes for sale and few buyers. We made an even lower bid, offering what we thought we
could afford, using our $6,000 as a down payment, and amazingly to us, our offer was
accepted.
Since we had to be out of our home in Perry, as it had already sold, the owner of this
home in Fort Valley agreed to let us move in before we closed on the property, and to pay
rent until the closing date. God had given me a very strong witness of His will for us to be
here, and He had gone before us up to this point. I knew we were to move in, although I had
no idea how I was going to come up with the closing costs, which included appraisal fees,
termite inspection, surveying costs, bank loan processing fees, and attorney fees. All told,
our portion amounted to about $3,600.
I was placing myself in a very vulnerable position by moving in ahead of the closing
date, for it would be a great embarrassment to arrive at this date and not have the money
on hand to pay these fees. Since I would already be in the house, I ran the risk of being
asked to vacate with no idea of where I would go from there. On top of this, my mother lived
just two doors down from this house, and she worked at a local manufacturing company in
the same department with the man who owned the house.
My mother became rather agitated when she found I had set a closing date, and had