Exciting News

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

I guess I took a longer weekend cause I never got around to writing yesterday. Actually my weekend was pretty exciting. In that we have been casually looking for the right house that would work for my family and my elderly mother and aunt. We have been talking for a while about relocating them closer to our family so we are able to help them more. My aunt has dementia and some days she is fine and other days she can't remember much and is confused. It has become more than my mother is able to keep up with on her own. We had all hoped this turning point was still off in the future another few years but it has become more and more apparent that a change needs to come sooner. Fortunately we are all in month to month rental arrangements at this point. So we have been looking at options for moving them closer. We had considered moving them into the same rental home community that we are in but when you add what we would all be paying for rents here it was a no brainer to realize if we combined our rent monies we could together get in to a much larger house.

On Friday I happened to be on Craigslist looking for massage tables and chairs and took a moment to check out the new rental postings for larger homes. I found this listing for a five bedroom home with two bathrooms that allowed for pets. http://spokane.craigslist.org/apa/4030339888.html.

I called and left a message but got a business answering machine. Since it was the beginning of a holiday weekend I figured we were unlikely to hear anything till Tuesday. So in the mean time we drove to the address and peeked in windows. We looked at the various pictures and what the posting said about the property. We all agreed it sounded really perfect. Yesterday (Tuesday we called the number again and talked to the owner and arranged to see the house. We walked through and all of us loved it. So I said we want it, what do we need to do next. Expecting the standard credit check for all adults to be the response. Instead he said "I don't find those credit checks to be all that helpful. I like you guys so he gave me his card and said to e-mail him when I got home and he would send me the lease to fill out.  Of course we discussed all the particulars. I e-mailed him and he sent the lease. I filled it out as a draft and e-mailed it back to him. I am supposed to meet him tomorrow to sign it and finalize everything.

So as you regular readers know I am starting Massage Therapy school next week. So my week days are pretty busy with that on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays. I have music students on Thursday and Fridays. So that leaves the weekends to move not just my own house, but my aunts 1 bedroom apartment, and my mother's two bedroom apartment. So the plan is to begin disassembling things at my moms and aunts on Saturday the 14th. We will get keys on Friday the 20th and take possession of the new house. We will have a truck to move them on the 21st and then we will move my household on the following weekend the 28th. It has all come together so quickly. Tomorrow we are meeting to sign contracts and to pay the deposit and first months rent. Then between teachers meetings and lessons I will arrange for trucks and work on switching over utilities and all the stuff that goes in to moving times three. Whoo hoo!

So all that to say - I expect this blog to be pretty hit and miss for the month of September and I will write when I can.

So here is todays verse. 
What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. 2 Timothy 1:13-14 NIV  

So how does this verse go along with the moving news I just shared. I have been praying and seeking the Lord through this whole process.  I try to fill these blog posts with sound teaching of how I walk by faith before the Lord. Not that I have arrived at perfection but I have walked with the Lord for more than 30 years at this point. I have prayed about the situation with my mom and aunt and I have watched to see how God might go about answering. 

I think it is interesting that when we walked through the house there were little things that each of us had wanted in a house. For my oldest son it was to be near a bus stop. My youngest wanted his own room. My mother wanted it to have a gas stove. I have never had a garbage disposal any where we have lived. My aunt needed a room on the first floor with access to kitchen, living room and bathroom with out having to deal with stairs. My husband liked that there were garden areas to be able to plant. We all love the big front porch and decks. There were so many little things that were things we had each said in our hearts and out loud to one another that we would want in the next house.  I have said all along as we have discussed the situation, I have said I am fine with moving but it all just needs to come together. Every step of the way things have gone amazingly smoothly. I did not want to have to spend oodles of time looking at bunches of places only to find something to find out that someone else got there first. 

My last move was pretty frustrating. We moved from a big house to storage because we could not find a place in time stayed with my mom for a bit and finally found a much smaller home. I have said I did not want to just make a lateral move. In this move we get more space and pay much less money. So much of what was so difficult on the last move has already gone so much more smoothly. So even though I have three households to move this month I fell confident that this time things will continue to go smoothly. Anyway I am excited and thankful as I watch it all unfold so wonderfully before us. 

We each need to guard the good deposit that was entrusted to us with the help of the Holy Spirit. I have been through enough stuff through the years to know that Gods blessings are not always easy, and wonderful things. Its great when they are. Often His blessings come in difficult packages and out of the struggle we become stronger. Some of you are struggling - the Lord loves you and He will never leave you or forsake you. He longs for you to turn to Him and trust Him to lead you each step of the way. I don't know why the last move was so hard and this one is going so easily. I don't think it is because God loves me more now, or because I have arrived at some level of good enough. The Lord love each of us right where we are at in this moment. When things are hard He says He will be with us and he is with us as well, when things are going amazing. He is our Lord in the good and in the difficult. He loves it when we trust Him and when we choose faith in Him over worry and fear. 

Prayer: I pray that you would know the Lords presence in your present situation. That He would be more than your wish genie. That you would see the wonder of how he goes before you and walks beside you. That in what ever your journey at this time you would come to know Him more.