sense of humor

Okay.
My stories are always complicated.
Always.
And this is one of those stories where I have to wonder about God's sense of humor.
Like if He was kinda just hanging out watching us run around like crazy people, just waiting to see when we'd look up.

Some of you may know that Andrew and I have wanted to move back into downtown Tucson for the better part of a year (maybe about two months after we signed another year lease on our current house, ha).
We lived there when we were first married (Barrio Viejo, to be exact) so we know what its like and really enjoyed it. (just thought I'd clear that one up in case you were thinking we were crazy for wanting to live there; we are crazy, but maybe not the ways you were thinking.)

Andrew especially loves to be in the center of where the action is and most of our weekends (and sometimes week days) we end up down there anyhow.
We didn't really want to rush into it and wanted to take our time to find a really nice place that would allow us to do the things we are both passionate about.

We have a year lease on our current place that we signed in March, 3 years ago.
So near the beginning of January we decided to give our landlords some notice and asked about going month to month (just in case we needed more time to find a place).
We were really hoping to move into this place our friend's landlord was fixing up (someone had lived in it for a while so it needs some work; we still hadn't even seen the place but I was hopeful) but didn't know exactly when it would be done so we were thinking we'd have that option to wait if we needed.

Wrong.

Through a complicated combination of texts, voicemails, and some pretty poor communication on the part of our landlords, they took away the option of going month to month - so that meant we would have to find a place by March, period.
We found this out about the middle of January.
I basically still had all my eggs in the basket of this dreamy, cute place that was being fixed up by our friend's landlord and really thought that would work out.

Wrong.

We were finally able to go see it. It was amazing.
Fabulous bones, very hisotrical and so much potential...

But it wouldn't be done until April...
Or after.

Wow.
You woulda thought God had told me there was no more Christmas.
I was crushed.
All my dreaming of living in this place, all my planning to move into downtown -
Not looking at all like I had envisioned.

Now we were about a month away from being homeless.
This was also days before I was planning to attend the IF:Gathering, which meant most of my weekend would be taken up there.
(*if* (haha) you don't know what I'm talking about I'll cover that later)
I seriously considered not going just so that I could look at more places to live.
I really didn't want to give up most of my weekend.
But I knew God had something to tell me.
So I listened and decided to still go.

God really got my attention that weekend.
There were many things I need to hear, but one of them was just to obey and trust God had a plan.
And His ways are NOT my ways.
I knew I needed to had a different perspective on this process.
And God definitely gave me one.
I let go of my wants and allowed God to give me peace.

For a couple days we earnestly looked for other options.
We had looked before but nothing was grabbing our attention.
It continued to be so.
Kinda like we were living the premise of Goldie Locks and the Three Bears.
Too small, too this, that, too... whatever.

It came down to this plan:
Rent a small studio in downtown, going month to month, put most of our stuff in storage, and then keep looking for places and keep praying that God had a plan.
So, I've been packing with that in mind.
All the while, Andrew has been overwhelmingly busy with design work, I've been leading music for church the last couple of Sundays, and we both got sick this weekend.
Can't help but laugh at how crazy this month has been for us.
And even in the midst of it all, God has truly given me a supernatural ability to appreciate this time.
This sweet, crazy, busy time that we have got to trust He's got us in.

Curve ball.

We both stayed home sick today - weird but it happened.
Coughing and headachy as I am, I've been trying to pack little by little.
Right when we stat down to eat, Andrew gets a text from our landlords -

The tenants they lined up have backed out and they are offering to let us go month to month.

(insert crazed, confused, dumfounded look here)

Say, what???

Needless to say we kinda jumped on the chance to reduce our stress level by a couple notches and gladly called them back to say we would take them up on that offer.

So.
It has been an interesting lesson God has been teaching us here.
This was what I had planned all along on my own - having enough time to look and find a place we really can see ourselves in for a while and pray through what that could look like.

But this time around -
This time, I am certain God is in control of this story.