When our neighbor approached us recently about the possibility of selling our house to her friend, my husband and I were completely caught off guard. Shocked, in fact! Though we had imagined that selling might happen somewhere down the road -- it certainly was not something we were considering at present. Could this opportunity have come from the Lord? We decided to make it a matter of prayer and careful consideration.
Actually, we no longer needed our five-bedroom house as our children were now pursuing higher education and work possibilities and had moved out. The neighbor’s friend happened to be a real estate agent with an expanded family and wanted to buy a house in our master-planned community. The sale could be accomplished without the usual realtor fees. After much thought and considerable prayer, we said YES!
To arrive at an asking price, we hired an assessor -- but the price range was large. I picked a figure in the middle of the range, and the buyer accepted it right away. I was horrified! In a negotiation, if that happens, you know you asked too little. Darn it! I should have asked HER what she wanted to pay. I should have let HER talk first. I now know for certain that we could have gotten quite a bit more! Actually, I felt tricked and resented our buyer. She is a real estate agent and knew what our house was worth better than we did. We did not ask to sell it – she asked to buy it!
In the midst of dealing with these very negative emotions, an incident with one of our sons came to mind. He quit college with just one semester to finish his degree and told us that he was going to get a job at a warehouse on I-10. His plan was to write a documentary and be published -- which, according to him, was equivalent to having a college degree.
Earlier, he had been told by my husband and me that when he graduated from college, we would provide a reliable used car so that he would not have debt starting out. So, we went ahead and gave him a car to enable him to commute to this job. Knowing that he was financially strained, my concern was that he would cut corners by not getting insurance. To make sure this would not happen, I took the license plates off the car before we gave it to him -- with documentation saying he had five days to acquire new plates.
The documentation had an address and dates on it. All he had to do was purchase some insurance and go get new plates. He did not. He parked it at his girlfriend's apartment without registering it, and it was towed that night. He was livid – this was our fault! His words: “It was very inconvenient how you gave me that car!”
Man! The Chutzpah! No one had ever given me a car, and it was INCONVENIENT for him.
That is when I heard God speak, and it was very clear: “This is what you are saying to ME! I gave you a gift, and you are losing sleep over how you could have gotten more money out of it – that you do not like how I gave you this gift.”
Oh, Lord! Forgive me for not seeing the absolute beauty in what You have just done for us. For questioning how it should have been done -- for thinking somehow I could have done better. What an amazing, undeserved, unexpected gift! Forgive me for criticizing it!
August 9, 2026
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights with whom
there is no variation or shadow due to change.
James 1:17
