I’ve linked up with other One Word bloggers over on Melanie’s blog Only A Breath. We’ll be linking up our “best” post for the month every month. Head over to see what other words bloggers are writing about for 2013.
For the last 3 or 4 months, Scott and I have been renovating our home. Interior and exterior paint, tile replacing the linoleum floors, and new carpet. So, Thursday night was the big night. We signed paperwork to put our house on the market. Yes, we’re selling our newly renovated home. We would really like to downsize to an apartment. Taxes and insurance continue to increase and a house’s value continues to decrease in this economy. Plus, we’ve lived here for 14 years and there are major expenses that will be coming up sooner rather than later. Hello, new roof?
Tim and I got up early Friday morning, had some breakfast, and then bought $100. worth of plants and mulch from Home Depot, knowing that we’d have to beautify our front planting strips that had been sorrowfully neglected over the last 2 or more years. We worked for over 3 hours. Tim broke our shovel and he went out to buy a new one. Did I mention that we’re selling the house and won’t need a shovel? It was truly a blessing to have a kid that drives so that I didn’t have to get out and go buy a new one. Tim went out and got us lunch and we had a short break. My calorie-counting program said that I burned over 1500 calories! Bonus!!!
We finished up around 1:30 PM. At 1:39 PM, I was sitting at my computer while Tim was showering and we got a call from our realtor. He advised me that he had put the house in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) at 4 AM that morning and someone wanted to show the house in 45 minutes. 45 MINUTES?!? I asked him to tell the people that they could come in an hour, so that I could shower and get out of the house. This was the first of 6 showings we had in 4 days. I know! Really!!!
We had 2 more showings on Saturday. People calling to schedule to arrive in 45 minutes or in an hour and a half. Luckily, I was out with a friend and my guys packed up and went to Starbucks. Sunday, we knew we had a showing at about 3 PM, and Monday we had one scheduled for 9:30 AM. But, as church was letting out, I checked my email and there was an email saying that we had an offer. It was a little lower than we had expected, but an offer nonetheless. Did I mention we have a wonderful realtor? We do! He advised the potential buyer’s realtor that he was meeting with us on Monday with multiple offers and they came back with an offer that was about what we expected to sell the house for. God is so good!!!
Our realtor came over last night with the now amended contract and we had our 6th and final showing at the same time. We stood in the driveway as the young couple and their realtor came and looked over our home. We had heard time and again from potential buyers that our home was lovely, but it was the surrounding neighborhood that they couldn’t get past. Obviously, our buyer is able to get past it. So, today we await the call from our realtor telling us that the contract has been signed by the buyer and we are moving forward.
In the meantime, I have been in contact with the apartment that we would like to live in. It just so happens that my parents live there already, so we have some experience with them. I’ve completed applications for all 3 of us, since we’re all over 18 years old. I’ve followed up on said applications by phone. I’ve had many emails back and forth with our lovely leasing agent. She worked with my parents, too.
The down side of having a closing on February 27th is that we have to pay both our mortgage and our new rent for February. We were hoping to move in on the 15th of the month, but we financially just can’t do that. The leasing agent said that the apartment that we really would have liked to have had could only be held until the 15th. I told her today to let the apartment go and we would trust in God to provide the right apartment for us. Putting that trust in God right out there must have been the right thing because our leasing agent was able to hold it for us until the 25th, when we’d be able to move in. I drop off a check to hold the apartment on Thursday.
So where is the patience in this story? Well, once our buyer signs the contract (and thank God that he’s already pre-approved for the mortgage!), we have to wait for the inspection and the appraisal and pray that everything goes well. We have to pack the stuff that we’re going to keep. We have to arrange for movers to move our stuff on the 25th. We have to arrange for the Center of Hope’s thrift store truck to come and take the rest of the stuff away. I almost wish I could just open the house and have them take all of our stuff away, but that’s not very practical. 
And so the fun begins…this was what our realtor said in his email that included a buyer-signed copy of the contract that popped up as I was writing this post. And so the fun begins indeed!
Please welcome Teasi Cannon, the author of My Big Bottom Blessing: How Hating My Body Led to Loving My Life. Teasi (pronounced Tee See) is married to her best friend, Bill Cannon, and they have three awesome children: Carli, Ben, and Sam. Teasi has a master’s degree in pastoral counseling from Liberty Theological Seminary, and is a sought-after speaker who loves to help women remember who they are in Christ.
One day not long ago I was sweeping my kitchen floor in the near trance-like state of La La Land, when I was jolted to my senses by the precious voice of my 4-year-old nephew saying, “Aunt Teasi, you have a vahwee (very) big butt.”
I set my broom aside, smoothed my shirt, and calmly turned to face him. Bright-eyed and curly-haired, he stood – completely oblivious to the fact that he had said the words no woman ever wants to hear. And then I let him have it. I bent down, coming only inches away from his little round face, and said, “Why…thank you!” Then I smiled big, stood to grab my broom, and returned unscathed to the task at hand.
A few years ago those innocently spoken words would have completely obliterated me, and rather than a thank you, might have actually incited an immature come-back such as: “Oh, yeah? Well, you’re short and you talk funny.”
But now, to the glory of God, moments like that are reminders to me that the miraculous has happened: I no longer hate my body (especially my back side); in fact, it has become one of the biggest blessings in my life.
Like most women (really every woman I’ve ever met), I lived years literally disgusted with what I saw in the mirror. The territory between my ears felt like nothing short of a war zone, with battles being fought everywhere: the bathroom, the grocery store, the bedroom, even church. I could never silence the ambush-ready community of inner critics (those hurtful thoughts we all think) that called my head home. And I missed out on so much: parties I refused to attend because my pants were too tight, dates with my husband because of a few gained pounds, quality time with my kids. I know I’m not alone in this.
We women have been lied to for years. We’ve been told that our value – our very right to be seen and celebrated – is determined by our waist-to-hip ratio or the proportions of our facial features, and that’s just not true. Our value is determined by the only One who really knows it: our God.
After hitting my head hard on the floor of my personal pit of despair, I slowly began my journey toward believing that. One inch at a time of healing, truth, and righteous anger led me to a life-saving realization: All those years I was desperate to change how I looked, God was desperate to change how I see. And He did.
Truth is, if God can make a prostitute the great grandmother of the Messiah, turn water into wine, and make blind men see; don’t you think He can turn a big bottom – or a big nose – or bird-thin legs – or whatever it is you hate – into a blessing. He did it for me, and I’m so ridiculously happy about the journey that I wrote a book about it.
