When God's Hand Moves

When Rachael and Michael were established here, I wanted more than anything for my whole family to be in church together.  Michael had always gone to church services with me when he and Rachael visited.  But in Westerville we had no good congregations to attend, Rachael’s job made her work on Sundays and the closest congregation was too far for me to ask Michael to drive.  So we hadn’t gone to church together for several years. 

Notah and Kerra have been attending a little Nazarene congregation since they moved here.  It is closer to our house than any congregation I’ve ever attended—only about ten minutes’ drive.  I hoped Rachael and Michael would go with me.  Another blessing, when Sunday rolled around, both of them were up and dressed and ready to go without my saying anything.  It blessed me because some of the Christians Michael had experience with had not been the best examples. 

The wonderful thing was that he liked Pastor Chad and enjoyed the services.  He listened to the messages and seemed to soaking it all in.   Then in October brother Arnie came to hold a revival for us.  At the end of about the last service Michael took Rachael’s hand and went forward to pray!  Thank the Lord.  It has been wonderful.  And there has been a real change in Michael.  Every once in a while he’ll make reference to the ‘old Michael’ doing something different from the way he is now!  He and Rachael have always had a good marriage, but I can see them both growing in the Lord together. 

They bought the house in Tierra Grande and from the first planned to have family and church people to visit in the big courtyard at the back.   Incidentally, and again this had to be the Lord, the house had an in-ground pool in that courtyard.  Not many houses in the desert have swimming pools and they hadn’t been looking for one.  When Rachael injured her back in the accident at Kroger’s the company had refused to pay the medical bills and compensation for it.  She has suffered with it ever since and her private doctor recommended that she swim as rehabilitation.  The swimming pool was simply God planning to take care of her!   

On January first or second, they began cleaning the house!  And it was a major job.  Two thirds of the house had to be gutted.  ALL of the floors had to be torn up; it was so urine soaked that it couldn’t be saved.  When all of the carpet, ceramic tile and wooden flooring had been ripped up, the subfloor was scrubbed with bleach and detergent but still had to be coated with a special sealer to be rid of the odor.  The central portion of the house was broken up with half walls and posts.  Those were torn out and the area turned into a beautiful great room.  The master bath had to be gutted also since the bathtub was cracked and the shower needed renovating.    

Now it is nearly complete, only the master bath needs finishing.

The landscaping looks like a different place.  The wild brush and trees have been pulled out and cut down.  The fruit trees and larger landscaping trees have been pruned.  The pool has been cleaned and Michael had the pool men out to tell him how to maintain it.  It’s like a little paradise.

This is June.  Our family have gathered several times for late dinners after church on Sundays.  Last Sunday Seth’s friend, Andrew from church, came and they spent the whole afternoon in the water! Everyone was in and out, too. 
Now I’m only waiting for this house to sell so I can move into the room they’ve designated as mine.  I was praying and meditating the other morning and the lord gave me the most wonderful assurance that when everything was complete at Marta Court this house would be sold.

He has already done so much for me.  Why should I doubt him now?

A List of Miracles

I haven’t spent much time here in the last months.  It isn’t that there haven’t been many, many blessings, but simply that my time has been taken up with so many other things.   

Looking back, I see that I’ve neglected to mention that we have moved from Ohio to New Mexico.  Rachael and Michael have had A Plan to move here from the time they were married.  They had a beautiful house in Ohio. They loved their house and its location, but it wasn’t New Mexico.  Their plan was to save their money, upgrade their house and accumulate enough money to make the move.  When Rachael and Michael set their minds to something, they DO it. 

Shortly after the first of the year in 2015, they decided the Time Had Come.  They began putting the finishing touches on their property to make it as attractive as possible.  They made a trip to NM to scope out available properties.  That provided a contact with a realtor and access to a very attractive house.  Things moved forward for the move

One of their problems was getting ME moved.  I have a lot of junk!  After a number of conversations with Notah they hatched a design to move me and some of my things first, at the end of April.  I began packing my personal things and cleaning drawers, shelves and my closet.  Some of the things I boxed and left for them to take their moving truck.  My clothes, some of my books and my plants I took with me.  My bearded dragon and Maggie were at the top of the list to go along.  Moving pets was a bigger hassle than moving myself.  In addition to them, I took Rachael’s turtle and her cat, Cole. 

Notah was in the process of purchasing a cargo van for the moving company.  He would have to pick it up at some location since it wouldn’t be shipped to them directly.  He elected to pick it up in Columbus as the least expensive way to go.  See how God works things out for his children?  His time table is NEVER wrong.

I stayed with Notah’s family while Rachael and Michael moved forward, listing their house with a realtor and arranging their move.  As soon as that was accomplished they began packing.   Their house was listed in May and sold within a month!   We have an amazing Lord!  How often does a house sell within thirty days!  Yet when God has His Hand on the timing, it happens.  There was blessing after blessing but by mid-July Rachael and Michael arrived in New Mexico!!  How can I help but praise the Lord?!

By this time I was living in Notah and Kerra’s  ‘old house’ that they were preparing for sale.  Rachael and Michael were able to store their things in the back room and live with me while they were job hunting and getting organized for a few months.  But after six months of rushing and working and organizing, they took a little time to kick back and relax.  Rachael wanted to show Michael her homeland.  He had seen the area around Albuquerque and Gallup during the times they had visited Notah and our family in Rock Springs, but there was the whole southwest that he’d never seen.  They took a week or two as a break and visited Monument Valley, Zion National Park and other.’ landmarks around the reservation before they began looking for jobs.

Now another example of how the Lord works things out for His People.  When they returned and began job hunting they both had jobs within a month.   Again, how amazing is that!!  In a time when jobs are hard to come by, especially good jobs they found good jobs almost immediately.  Michael was hired to manage an ironworks shop—the same position as he’d had in Ohio.   Rachael was hired as an assistant manager in a bank!  I could hardly believe it! 

The next issue was finding a house.  They explored the area around Albuquerque, north to Santa Fe and south to the Tijeras area.  They wanted a house ‘in the mountains.’  After they had made a few rounds viewing houses, Kerra mentioned that some friends of theirs had a house for sale in Tierra Grande.  I didn’t thing they would be at all interested; Tierra Grande is a wide flat plain lying in the bowl between the Sandia Mountains, the Manzanos, Los Pinos and the Ladrones.  I liked and still do like, having the distant mountains watching over us, but the land could by no stretch of imagination be called ‘mountainous.’

But when Rachael and Michael looked at the house they liked it immediately, in spite of many drawbacks.   The people living there were horrible housekeepers.  Their could-be beautiful house was in an awful condition. They had goats and pigs and dogs running loose.  Their granddaughter kept Rabbits and chinchillas in wire cages on the floor in her bedroom.  The property was overgrown with well-intentioned but improperly maintained vegetation.  I couldn’t believe it when Rachael and Michael began talking of buying it.   Now THAT was the Lord.

At any rate, the sale finally went through and they took possession the first of December, 2015..