...where ya hang yer hat.
One of the guys I work with asked me last night if I still smoked. I told him it'd been almost seven weeks without a cigarette and I took the opportunity to tell him that God helped me quit by taking the desire away from me.
That's really a true account; one I've shared before And if I got through yesterday without having a cigarette, then I don't need to smoke no matter what comes my way. And I made it; with God's help, I made it!
I paid someone $350 yesterday to be brutally honest with me. When I talked to the man on the phone, I told him I needed a fair and honest appraisal of what my house is worth, given the market conditions, the listing history, the offer for $125,000 I turned down, etc...
And I got every penny's worth. After he'd toured the house, he sat down and began to explain to me why I couldn't sell my house. He started with words like dated. Then we got to the crux of the matter:
In today's real estate market, my house is obsolete.
I know I need to replace the carpets. Bucket ate a hole in one of them. A pussycat got trapped in one of the little bedrooms a long time ago and frayed up the carpet trying to claw its way under the door. Then there is the dogs... I get that. But Obsolete? My little "mansion" on the hill? Yup.
He explained it to me this way: The basement is pretty much a joke. I've known that since I bought the house. I also know that with some curtains and furniture it fixes up ok. But it needs to be gutted and redone properly because that's one thing for sure... it was never finished properly. And with just me in the house, there really isn't a reason to finish it properly.
But it turns out the basement is the least of my worries. Apparently the floor plan of my little casa sucks. He used this analogy to explain it to me.
No family would buy my house to move into it because if they had a teenage daughter, she wouldn't want to get ready in the bathroom and go back to her bedroom by walking out into a common room. There is no hallway between the bedroom doors and the largest living area in the house. Someone else once told me that the dining table belongs in the room I use as a family room and I need to move my sofa and TV into the big room and use that for the central area in the house, but in the back of my mind I'm not so sure I agreed. I figure we're all entitled to our opinions. It never occurred to me that I might actually be wrong.
Until yesterday.
The man told me something that was very hard to hear. My little Shangri La isn't all that I've made it to be in my mind, and furthermore, he told me, the only buyers interested in my home would likely be someone who wanted to gut the entire house and start over.
And then he further went on to tell me that I probably should have taken the $125,000 because it would be a pretty fair offer, as far as what he'd seen yesterday led him to believe. I believe he said something like this: "The only value in your house is just for the shell." That's the bricks and the roof. And that's without me telling him the circuit breaker panel is a known fire hazard.
My only reply to the man was this: You should have seen what it looked like when I bought it.
I want you to look around your little abode at this point and think about all the things you've done with it since you bought it. I've painted the upstairs, replaced old carpet with laminate flooring, new carpet, and tile in the bathrooms that used to be carpeted. The kitchen is too small but the cabinets have been painted and new hardware installed to make the kitchen at least tolerable to look at. I was pretty happy with the things I've done around here. I replaced dated light fixtures with newer ones. And I found out yesterday that it was all for nothing, because what I needed to do was to get someone in here that knows houses and have them re-design the floor plan. Can you imagine hearing that about your house and how you'd feel?
I was hurt, shocked, devastated, and any other adjectives you can describe. I mean I knew it was bad but I didn't know it was THAT bad. I was so bad that Miss June thought I was probably going to take the night off and sit home and feel sorry for myself. I know she expected me to do that. She's seen me that down before and she could tell just by the tone of my voice that those things really hurt. But at least I knew the truth and as bad as the truth is, I'd much rather have it than a lie.
And being hurt had more to do with the other thing going on in my life. Yesterday's little tidbit is that while God always wants reconciliation of relationships, sometimes that doesn't happen. I saw the first message about this on my Facebook page. Part two came over the radio on my way to work. That just made things worse.
But then I remembered something. I like my little house and the things I know are wrong with it can all be fixed. The things the man pointed out to me can also be fixed. Over time. And it's not like I'm wanting to move or anything. I don't. God let me stay in my home, obsolete as it is, because this is where I'm supposed to be. And then I'm reminded of the blessings that come out of this; and there are some very unusual things that could happen. In a couple of weeks these things should have a final resolution and I'll explain it all then, because you're going to get a glimpse of how God has taken some of the awful things I've been through and turned them into blessings. And there's something else to this, too. And I can use my house as an analogy for something I didn't even see until just this very second.
The old me, the man I used to be had very little worth. Like the house, when the Holy Spirit moved in, I wasn't worth much, either. I was just worth the shell. But then God gave me a new heart, a new attitude, a new outlook. He taught me how to love. He made me want to quit smoking. He's remodeling. And maybe that's what I can remember about the house. I have my reasons for buying the house. And it was never about what the house was. It was about what the house could be.
In the meantime, this house may be old. It may be obsolete. There are things I need to save for and fix before I start storing up two by fours in the spare bedrooms. But there is something this house is that no amount of money can change. Even though it's not what it was or ought to be right now, this one thing hasn't changed.
It's still home. It's where I hang my hat. It's where I felt Jesus standing next to me as I stared aimlessly out at the mountains one morning. It's a garden that will feed my little family and others too. It's flowers that were planted with love come back to blossom. It's where God wants me and it's where I belong, at least for now.
And I'm so grateful to God for each and every day I'm here.
That's really a true account; one I've shared before And if I got through yesterday without having a cigarette, then I don't need to smoke no matter what comes my way. And I made it; with God's help, I made it!
I paid someone $350 yesterday to be brutally honest with me. When I talked to the man on the phone, I told him I needed a fair and honest appraisal of what my house is worth, given the market conditions, the listing history, the offer for $125,000 I turned down, etc...
And I got every penny's worth. After he'd toured the house, he sat down and began to explain to me why I couldn't sell my house. He started with words like dated. Then we got to the crux of the matter:
In today's real estate market, my house is obsolete.
I know I need to replace the carpets. Bucket ate a hole in one of them. A pussycat got trapped in one of the little bedrooms a long time ago and frayed up the carpet trying to claw its way under the door. Then there is the dogs... I get that. But Obsolete? My little "mansion" on the hill? Yup.
He explained it to me this way: The basement is pretty much a joke. I've known that since I bought the house. I also know that with some curtains and furniture it fixes up ok. But it needs to be gutted and redone properly because that's one thing for sure... it was never finished properly. And with just me in the house, there really isn't a reason to finish it properly.
But it turns out the basement is the least of my worries. Apparently the floor plan of my little casa sucks. He used this analogy to explain it to me.
No family would buy my house to move into it because if they had a teenage daughter, she wouldn't want to get ready in the bathroom and go back to her bedroom by walking out into a common room. There is no hallway between the bedroom doors and the largest living area in the house. Someone else once told me that the dining table belongs in the room I use as a family room and I need to move my sofa and TV into the big room and use that for the central area in the house, but in the back of my mind I'm not so sure I agreed. I figure we're all entitled to our opinions. It never occurred to me that I might actually be wrong.
Until yesterday.
The man told me something that was very hard to hear. My little Shangri La isn't all that I've made it to be in my mind, and furthermore, he told me, the only buyers interested in my home would likely be someone who wanted to gut the entire house and start over.
And then he further went on to tell me that I probably should have taken the $125,000 because it would be a pretty fair offer, as far as what he'd seen yesterday led him to believe. I believe he said something like this: "The only value in your house is just for the shell." That's the bricks and the roof. And that's without me telling him the circuit breaker panel is a known fire hazard.
My only reply to the man was this: You should have seen what it looked like when I bought it.
I want you to look around your little abode at this point and think about all the things you've done with it since you bought it. I've painted the upstairs, replaced old carpet with laminate flooring, new carpet, and tile in the bathrooms that used to be carpeted. The kitchen is too small but the cabinets have been painted and new hardware installed to make the kitchen at least tolerable to look at. I was pretty happy with the things I've done around here. I replaced dated light fixtures with newer ones. And I found out yesterday that it was all for nothing, because what I needed to do was to get someone in here that knows houses and have them re-design the floor plan. Can you imagine hearing that about your house and how you'd feel?
I was hurt, shocked, devastated, and any other adjectives you can describe. I mean I knew it was bad but I didn't know it was THAT bad. I was so bad that Miss June thought I was probably going to take the night off and sit home and feel sorry for myself. I know she expected me to do that. She's seen me that down before and she could tell just by the tone of my voice that those things really hurt. But at least I knew the truth and as bad as the truth is, I'd much rather have it than a lie.
And being hurt had more to do with the other thing going on in my life. Yesterday's little tidbit is that while God always wants reconciliation of relationships, sometimes that doesn't happen. I saw the first message about this on my Facebook page. Part two came over the radio on my way to work. That just made things worse.
But then I remembered something. I like my little house and the things I know are wrong with it can all be fixed. The things the man pointed out to me can also be fixed. Over time. And it's not like I'm wanting to move or anything. I don't. God let me stay in my home, obsolete as it is, because this is where I'm supposed to be. And then I'm reminded of the blessings that come out of this; and there are some very unusual things that could happen. In a couple of weeks these things should have a final resolution and I'll explain it all then, because you're going to get a glimpse of how God has taken some of the awful things I've been through and turned them into blessings. And there's something else to this, too. And I can use my house as an analogy for something I didn't even see until just this very second.
The old me, the man I used to be had very little worth. Like the house, when the Holy Spirit moved in, I wasn't worth much, either. I was just worth the shell. But then God gave me a new heart, a new attitude, a new outlook. He taught me how to love. He made me want to quit smoking. He's remodeling. And maybe that's what I can remember about the house. I have my reasons for buying the house. And it was never about what the house was. It was about what the house could be.
In the meantime, this house may be old. It may be obsolete. There are things I need to save for and fix before I start storing up two by fours in the spare bedrooms. But there is something this house is that no amount of money can change. Even though it's not what it was or ought to be right now, this one thing hasn't changed.
It's still home. It's where I hang my hat. It's where I felt Jesus standing next to me as I stared aimlessly out at the mountains one morning. It's a garden that will feed my little family and others too. It's flowers that were planted with love come back to blossom. It's where God wants me and it's where I belong, at least for now.
And I'm so grateful to God for each and every day I'm here.
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