2014 What a Year it's Been

January-We put in an offer on a house and didn't get it. It was a foreclosure and had nine other offers. It was an awesome house we could have lived in forever. After being fixed up, it would have been our dream house. Later we found out that we only lost it by $500.

February- We put an offer in on another house and didn't get it. This was the fifth or sixth in the last year.

March-We got a puppy! We picked up Brady early from school on his birthday and went to the Humane Society and found Bandit. We decided to stop looking at houses because it was just getting too close to the baby being born.We didn't want to move and have a baby at the same time. We did that before and didn't want to repeat it. We weren't going to look unless it was something that seemed like it could be THE house.

June-We happened to find what we thought was the perfect house for us. The location was just what we wanted and the house had so much space and the price was good bc it was another foreclosure so we put offer on house number seven and it was our fourteenth anniversary, so we were feeling lucky. One month later we had to walk away. Later we tried to buy the same house a couple more times and it never worked out.

 July- Arilynn Felicity Rainn was born! Years ago there was a little girl in the nursery named Arilynn and I thought it was such a pretty name that I decided that if I ever accidentally got pregnant and happened to have a girl I would name her Arilynn. Her middle names came about because during that time in our life we were experiencing moments of great joy and excitement followed by intense discouragement and disappointment. That's how life is. You have to take what you're given and focus on the good. I always loved the quote, "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." -and that's what we were learning. We were so blessed with meals from our small group and the diaper shower from Cain Halter. We're still using those diapers!

October- We've gone through 11 houses. Our house is still on the market but the last three showings haven't even made it into  the house. We're very frustrated. We didn't think it would be this hard.
Jason is interviewing for a job in Shelby NC. He's been working so hard and waiting so long for a promotion, but nothing ever works out. We really want to stay in Greenville, but maybe God wants us in NC. We just don't know. He'll interview and see what happens. We went up to Shelby to check things out, but small country towns really don't appeal to us. We have to support our family and things aren't working out for us in Greenville. We just don't know what to do. Jason made the painful decision to turn down Shelby and the salary that would come with it. The money would have been life changing for us, but it wasn't a good fit for our family. I don't think we would have been happy there.  The same day he finally got his promotion after 5 years of waiting and we're so happy to be able to stay in Greenville!
Faith is really enjoying drama, chorus and news crew at school and Brady and Kasey enjoy riding the Y bus every day. One day they were pretending to see red spots on each other and saying it was the measles. Their poor bus driver thought they really did have the measles and was quite worked up into a frenzy over the matter.
We were planning to go up to New England but had to cancel our trip due to financing. Within 2 months we had a baby, fixed our air conditioner, fixed our car, had some extensive dental work done, and had to pay for an appraisal and an inspection on a house we didn't even buy. It wiped out our savings account and put us in debt so we didn't think vacation would be a good idea . Maybe next year.

December- We really didn't want to move over the holidays with no money in the bank and debt, but that's what happened. We stumbled on another really great house and went for it. There were multiple offers, but we didn't get it because he didn't like the contingency of the sale of our house (our house wasn't even on the market at the time) So, we had to put our house back on the market after we unpacked most of our things thinking we would wait until February to try again.) We were still getting really negative feedback so we drastically dropped the price on our house and finally got an offer, a really low offer, but an offer.  There was only one house that was worth considering at the time and it was more than we wanted to spend, but it happened to be the one that worked out. It was an incredibly stressful process and the move was rough because we didn't have much help. I'm so thankful for my in-laws and the friend and stranger who helped us move. I don't know what we would have done without them. The first night was hard. We didn't know if we made the right decision. Things didn't happen the way we were expecting and we were noticing things about the house we didn't notice before, but it has grown on us and we're quite happy with it now.

It's been a very hard and exciting year leaving us exhausted.  I've learned that sometimes you have to let go of expectations and take things as they come. His ways are sure not our ways! 2014 was one of the 2  hardest years we've ever had, but it left us with a happy ending. We're thankful for Arilynn,  our new house that we never thought would happen, and Jason's new position that starts in January. We have a bottle of our favorite wine that we've been saving to celebrate a new house or promotion and now we get to dust it off and celebrate both!

an ordinary walk changed by Light.

I dreamed I was taking a walk early in the morning. Everyone was going about their business when suddenly the light changed and all the ordinary things became beautiful. There was a little boy with freckles and curls playing in a tree and a group of people in the distance dancing and the Light gave them life. The Light hit everything and everyone perfectly in that moment and transformed all the mundane into spectacular beauty. I woke up thinking about how all our righteousness is as filthy rags and there is no good thing in us apart from Him and how God is LIGHT. I woke up feeling refreshed in a joy-filled and peaceful way. I had been so sick and knew this dream was a gift.