Isn’t he cute?

My family and I live in a rural area. With rural living comes little critters, and sometimes these critters can get into one’s home.  For a few weeks now, I’ve been trying to catch this little guy.  I never saw him or found traces of him, but I heard him. I could feel his presence too in my bedroom, lurking about under my bed and in my closet.

He would also wake me up in the middle of the night as began work on his new condo in my wall. I swear,  It sounded as if he was operating  an earth mover in there while  he was doing his  demo work.    At one point  during his occupancy, I rolled over in bed one evening only to find my husband not there but standing by the dresser, kicking the wall and hollering for the varmint to shut up and go to sleep.

And from all the racket our new friend was making one would have thought for sure that he was a giant rat…the kind they make horror movies about.   But I over came my fear and set  out my  humane mouse trap loaded with a blob of peanut butter.

For a week nothing happened.  Well, I say nothing happened.  I could hear him playing with the trap each night, testing it out to see what it was.  Each morning I would wake up confident in knowing that I had caught the critter, but was disappointed each and every time. That was until today.

I awoke this morning to the triumphant  sounds of him trying to escape the confines of his peanut butter prison.  Running into the living room, I saw  the  trap was sprung.  He was definitely inside it. Now all I had to do was to figure out what to do with him.

I took a poll from all the kids and it shocked me a bit as to their reply: Feed it to the cat.

Well, I can’t do that; not now anyway. Not that I’m opposed to cats eating mice. I’m all for it. It’s  natures way, and my cats do an awesome job of keeping the stats in check. But you’re missing the point here. You see, I’ve looked at him.

I’ve fallen under his spell. I’ve been captivated  by his big ears, his tiny little eyes, his wispy whiskers, and his long slender tail.  He’s just so darn cute….nasty and loaded with cooties, but cute none the less. I mean he can’t be any bigger than one of those little  pom-pom balls you use for crafts, can he?

So my youngest daughter and I put him into a box and are going to release him far, far, far from home….in my neighbor’s yard. Well, actually it’s the back ten acres of his property where it’s wooded.

If I was to release him on our two acres, he’d just find his way back into my house, where  the whole process would  just start over again. Trust me, I know.

In fact, come to think of it, I swear that he looks a lot like the last mouse I caught.  Hmmmm….  If  it is the same one and he returns again, I’m making him sign a one year contract and charging him rent.

Can I Get a Witness…

Something extraordinary has just recently happened to my husband and I: we didn’t sell our house. For almost two years now, give or take a month, we’ve been trying our best to sell our house. We’ve had no success. Not even a glimmer of a possibility.

First, our price was way, way to high.  Our friend and real estate agent at the time assured us that we would get the price for our 32oo square foot living area home on two acres.  My husband agreed. I thought they were both crazy.

After some time on the market, they decided to lower the price.  But by then it was too late and the housing market had crashed–committed suicide was more like it.  Our friend was replaced with a ‘by owner’ sign and the price was lowered drastically by a hundred thousand.

Even though we were now in a fair price range, people were panicking and no one was calling.

After a few unsuccessful months on our own, we hired another agent from a bigger company this time.  He was terrible to say the least, and kept bragging on his photos of the house.  For six months we sat and waited, but nothing happened.  He was at a loss for words.  Again, we lowered the price drastically and then gave him the boot.

Never in our lives have we had so much trouble selling our house… and we’ve sold lots of them. It’s not as if we were new to the whole business.

Then things got worse.  We were having trouble making our house notes and bills due to some outside, unforeseen happenings.  But we were bound and determined more than ever to sell our house before we drowned.

Back in the yard went the’ by owner’ sign with yet another price drop.  This time it was under what we owed on it by 20 thousand.  In essence we were giving the house away just so we could break even ( well, not even that really). Even that didn’t work.

During this whole chaotic  time, I had been praying for God to show me– us–what to do.  Our reasons for moving had seemed pretty solid in the beginning, but I was starting to doubt everything.  I was discouraged, depressed, and had lost my ability to see the humor in life.

Not a good place to be in, but I continued to pray.

Then two things happened that seemed to be a miracles:  First,  our mortgage company after almost a year of fighting with us, gave us a fixed low, low rate on our home loan.   And Second,  a young couple had called us back to set down and talk terms.  In other words, they wanted the house. All of this within a few days of each other.

I screamed ( really, I did) for joy; we had done it!

But as the time and day drew closer to close the deal on our house, I began to get nervous and angry.   Things didn’t feel right; something was wrong. We had gotten what we wanted, prayed for, but It was making me feel uneasy.

So I shut the prayer closet door and ask God in plain, simply words to tell me yes or no on selling our house (I’m sure he didn’t appreciate me talking to him as if he were a four year old…).  I told him that I was slow and pig headed and that I needed him to physically tell me the answer.

About an hour or so later, the phone rang.  It was my mother.  She stated that she wasn’t sure just why she was calling me. You see, my mom doesn’t just call out of the clear blue to shoot the breeze.  She has to have a reason.

Anyway, she proceeded to tell me all the happenings in the family that was going on and to who it was happening too and so on.  Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned that we finally had a buyer for our house when suddenly the words,” You shouldn’t sell your house” burst from her lips.

“What?”

” You shouldn’t sell your house.  It’s a mistake; don’t do it.  Things will get better.”

Now, she was the one in the first place who agreed with our reasons for selling.  What was going on here?  And then it hit me: God had giving me my answer. I  suddenly felt warm, fuzzy, and very content.   Immediately I thanked Him.  It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders; I could breath again.

I hung up with my mother and called my husband, telling him where I stood on selling our house.  I also told him how I came to this conclusion and he agreed that we shouldn’t sell.  Just like that, it was over.  What a huge breeze of fresh air.

When the kids came home from school, I told them that we weren’t moving and every last one of them shouted for joy.  We were all happy not to be moving.

Then, something strange happened to me.  I found my joy; I found my humor. I discovered that I really did like my house.  I like having roots; the kids like having roots. The world didn’t look so harsh now.  It’s strange, I know.

Now, all this is not to say that we have magically gone from just barely getting by to being well off. The storm of this ‘ time and season’ isn’t over yet.  We still have to budget every penny that we get,  but I can see the sun breaking on the horizon.   Better times are coming….I can feel it in my bones.

What a great God  we have!