In the midst of it ALL

Life is CRAZY!

You know, I should really just leave it at that! Enough said... But humor me! Anyone who has read some of my more recent blogs or followed me at all on Facebook knows that my life is a mess right now. Chris is in full swing of baseball season and is not at home very often or gets home very late. The weekends are taken up with either baseball games or Saturday School for him at work. I am having to take care of Natalie by myself in the afternoons and evenings (With the help of Jackie Davis, of course) and I am in my third trimester of my pregnancy and beginning to really feel it!

This past 2 weeks alone have been very touch and go for our family. I have been in and out of the doctors office for glucose tests and Gestational Diabetes testing and result discussions. Chris has been anxiously waiting his final evaluation for his Alternative Certification process by his campus principals and program officials and again baseball season stress and weariness. On top of that, for whatever reason, Natalie has been having stomach and digestive problems and been overall VERY FUSSY. We are not sure if it is just constipation or a big problem like lactose intolerant, hopefully we will find out soon. In addition to all of this, our house has now been on the market for 10 months and still no offer in sight!

Until Saturday, April 7th. It all started when I posted a picture on Facebook of Chris and Natalie at the Astro's game and our realtor sends a comment back that we were getting an offer on our house. This was great news but my bad attitude and as my dad said "Lack of faith" showed through in my response to her as I said "That is great but I am not going to hold my breath". It had been 10 months and in my mind... I felt like I was going to have to raise my kids, graduate them from high school and retire living in my in-laws house before ours would sell. (You can see why my dad said it was a lack of Faith...) Despite my bad attitude, I called my family and some of my closer friends and asked them to pray for that situation over the weekend.

Easter Sunday came and went and we had a blast together as a family. We went to the Easter Egg Hunt at our church and had a wonderful day and evening together. But still Chris and I each had our own different worries and frustrations going on in our heads and we seemed to be so stressed we were taking it out on each other. All married couples do that right ?? :) Unfortunately, I am sure we do that FAR TOO OFTEN! But we are working on this!

Monday morning came and I was in a professional day meeting at school and got a text from our realtor saying she emailed me the offer. I dropped everything (literally) and went to office to see the details. I reviewed the papers and saw from the details that we were going to end up losing money on our house. I tried to reach Chris but was unable to. I continued to try to contact him but didn't have any luck. I called my realtor to let her know I could not confirm or deny the offer until I spoke with Chris and she the gave me some advice about counter offering and told me to call her as soon as we decided what to do.

At about 1pm Chris texted me to tell me that he finally got observed that morning and it DID NOT GO WELL. I felt so very bad for him and I wanted to drive down there and give him a hug. He was stressed, frustrated and mad at the whole situation and needed some encouragement. Instead we had to worry about this offer on our house and how we were going to counter. Chris, being the more logical and analytical of the two of us (Besides... he is the math teacher), wanted to counter offer with a much higher price than I did. I was just thinking the emotional side of the story and finally after 10 long months having my own house again.

In the end, we went with the obvious better choice of the logical and analytical reasoning and counter offered. On Tuesday, we found out that they came back with another offer lower than our 1st counter and that is when we decided to take their offer. This was a huge blessing to us and a burden lifted off our shoulders.

Yet still in the midst of it all Chris and I were still both stressed and tired from the burdens of the week and weekend to really be able to celebrate together. This made for a very uncomfortable evening but we were eventually able to get some rest and really celebrate the whole ordeal yesterday and today.

It is so amazing to me how you can be caught in the middle of what seems like the "end of the world" situations and feel like nobody is there to help and yet somehow God finds a way to lift you up. I saw a "pin" on Pinetrest that said "When you feel like you are drowning... remember your lifeguard WALKS ON WATER". This is so true and remarkable to me. There I was drowning in my stress, life and pity and there God stood holding out His hand saying "Take My hand, Kellie".

My dad was right... This WAS a faith issue and I am really glad we took the "gamble" and decided to counter offer and eventually take their other offer as well! We are supposed to close on May 21st or SOONER and we will be really relieved once we officially get this off our chest.

No matter what you might be facing or how deep your "waves" are and may feel like you are drowning... Remember God is your lifeguard and he will SAVE you! Just reach out your hand! I am so glad we reached out and put our Faith in Him.

God is good... ALL THE TIME!