We signed our names so many times today, after awhile it just became a scrawl. The house is ours, sometime between tomorrow at 11 am southern time, and Monday when the sellers actually get their money. They've already changed the combination to the garage lock, so we're saying the place is ours. We did something called a 'paperless closing'. Hahahaaaaaaa! Sort of like email and the internet were supposed to make us a paperless world, paperless closings work like this: they email you the documents, which you download, print out, make a copy of, and send back to them so they can likely make many more copies.

It's been over 12 years since we bought a house, and we've never bought one from an owner, without a realtor on either side. Thank the Lord, the seller is a realtor/broker so she knew what she was doing. We actually sat in the snack shop of Bass Pro to write up the contract, and after countless phone calls, emails and mailings back and forth they have become friends of sort. So tonight, they're staying, for one last night, at the lake house they so lovingly had built fifteen years ago. She told me today they have such mixed feelings, and it'll be bittersweet to sit with coffee and watch the birds from the sunporch tomorrow morning for the last time. I told them, give us some time in the house to do you proud, then you can come back for a stay, and have coffee and watch birds with us.

We've prayed over which house will be our home, for about 18 months, and feel God led us to this specific one. We've seen his hand guide us through each step, and the last few mornings I've had coffee with devotions, on my family room sofa, praying for the last few steps of buying this home. For the couple who is leaving it behind, for our family and all the wonderful times we'll share there. I'm praying it will be a blessing to many friends and family, and that going to the 'lakehouse' will be something to really look forward to - coffee, birds and all.

But right now, after a solid week of being on the phone, and signing papers and faxing papers and scanning papers, for a 'paperless closing', I'm over the moon to get up tomorrow morning, make the bed, kiss DH goodbye, give the tempermental cat one last pat, and jump in the car for a girlfriend weekend. Hope you all have a great weekend out there as well.

Labels: Glimpse of the Heart