"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding .In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” This passage from Proverbs 3:5-6, has long been my watchword, guiding me as I move forward in my life. So, when I decided it was time to move closer to the church I had been attending for several months, I trusted that this was a right idea and I began looking for a house to buy nearer this church. I live in a high real estate region and knew this was not going to be easy but felt I should be able to buy a modest place with a loan based on my income.
After a couple of months searching I found a house that felt right, and checked with my mortgage broker for the loan. Both of us were surprised to learn that the banks refused to recognize as income that part of my income which came from foreign sources; the amount they would loan me was insufficient to buy a house. I tried other mortgage firms and other banks. The response was always the same. Needless to say I was disappointed. I knew I needed to move and I felt that moving nearer this church was a right move. I worked with ideas of home and of right place, knowing that I could not be deprived of my right place, in fact I could never be outside my right place, my home. “ Home and heaven are within thee” says hymn 278, so I carried them with me. I continued praying with these truths as I also continued searching for a less expensive form of home.
One day I visited a mobile home I could afford but it was so dirty and dingy, had so much work to be done on it, that I just said “No” and continued searching with little to show for the search. Everything in the area was too high for my budget. That’s when I realized I needed to wholly let go and trust that God was guiding me in my search and that I would find the right place. This was during a period of deepening spiritual growth thanks to study I was sharing with other Christian Scientists, and I did just let go and trust that I was being guided to my home.
About this time I realized that waiting to find a home in order to apply for membership at church was doing things backwards, so I applied for church membership. As I did so I realized that I kept going back to the website of that old dingy mobile home, perhaps because it was one of the few inexpensive properties on the market, but perhaps because I should give it a second visit. That’s just what I did, taking my daughter with me for a second opinion. And this time I saw the potential of a beautiful place for me to live. So I bought it, and yes it’s been a lot of work, but 3 months later I am enjoying my home, both my place-to-live home and my church home. There’s still much to do and I am looking forward to doing it. “Every step of progress is a step more spiritual” (PEO 1:2) , and that’s what I’m experiencing with this move. I am so grateful to know that, “Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way” (S&H, p 454:18) and that I can always trust that statement.