On that day

The big news is that we have an offer on our house. Now then, let me explain the title of this post.

A few months ago I was asked to speak in church. I talked for a while about the people at the beginning of 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, who are waiting for the sign of the birth of Christ--a day and a night and a day without darkness and a new star. The unbelievers chose a day and said that if the sign had not come by that day, they would kill anyone who believed. It came down to that day. It was the day before. If the sun went down that day--the most likely and certain thing in the world--the believers would be killed. And on that day, the sign was given. I talked about the incredible faith of those people and the fear they must have faced. I talked about how sometimes in our lives it comes down to that day, but that God always comes through.

As all of you know, we're selling our condo in Salt Lake. We have to sell it short because of how much our home has depreciated in value since we bought it; we won't be able to get enough money from the sale to cover the amount remaining on our loan. So, the bank approves a sale amount less than what we owe and forgives the rest of the debt--it's better for everyone than letting the home go to foreclosure. However, we have to miss at least one mortgage payment so that we are technically delinquent on our loan; this enables our bank to recoup the short amount from their insurance provider (this is why we've been paying mortgage insurance all along, I guess). We don't take this missing-a-payment deal lightly and were waiting until we got an offer on the house to miss the payment, so we'd only miss one. Every month we've been waiting until the last day to make our payment and then driving it in to the office.

We had been fasting and praying for an offer by August 16th. That's when our payment was due and would enable us to close in time for Blake to move with me to CA when I go back to school in September. We had a showing Thursday afternoon. Blake was in his car at lunch on Friday, about to drive out to make the payment when we got a call from our realtor letting us know that we had an offer. A half an hour later would have been too late. We haven't signed anything yet, but we've been negotiating back and forth since then, and everything looks really positive. The buyer is committed and we're just working out the details of appliances and closing costs and what not.

We're not out of the woods yet--we still need a job and an apartment in CA--but we are so grateful for this offer. Selling the house has been the biggest obstacle for us for the last 8 months or so. The relief in our house is palpable. Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes on our behalf.