Not Your Typical Church Lady

What I am about to tell you is true and factual. It's also an amazing example of the greatness and deliberateness of God. Before we start, we need to know some history. I'll do my best to make the history brief so no one falls asleep.

If one were to look up the terrible and hopeless things that have happened to the Jewish people throughout their existence, one would discover that there is a particular date on which all these disasters seem to occur. It is the 9th of Av. Av is the name of a month on the Jewish calendar. The Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycles, not the Gregorian calendar, so the dates on which the 9th of Av may fall varies. Feel free to look that up and learn more if you are so inclined. Notable disasters that happened on the 9th of Av include the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The Crusades in which thousands of Jewish people would be killed began on Aug. 15, 1096. Their expulsion from England in 1290 and later Spain in 1492 both began with decrees or deadlines set for the 9th of Av for those years. And yet through all this destruction, even when they couldn't see it at that very moment, God was providing another way. That is a key point to remember for later.

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him" (Psalm 126:5-6, NIV).

In "The Book of Mysteries" by Jonathan Cahn, he talks about the day after – the 10th of Av. He reminds us that on Aug. 3, 1492, on the 10th of Av that year, Columbus set sail, embarking on an adventure that would change the world forever. He goes on to say that as a result, in the years to come, America would become the greatest refuge the Jewish people would ever know outside of Israel. He points out that we should remember the 10th of Av times of our lives and how God turns sorrows into blessings.

And now we get to my story. When I originally read about the 9th and 10th of Av, I immediately thought of how we (my husband and I) came to live where we do. Many years ago when we were still newlyweds, we rented a house for four years. It was a very nice brick house out in the country, but it was not truly ours. If you know us personally, you know that my husband has sprawling interests that take up a lot of space. As renters, we didn't have the room for expansion that is necessary for such an array of hobbies and interests. In addition to that, he is also a farmer at heart. It's in his DNA. For generations, every man in his family leading up to him had been a farmer. We wanted to find our own home and looked at several places but nothing ever seemed to work out. In 2002, he was working part time for a local farmer. A nearby farm was going up for auction that year and his employer was very interested in buying it. If that happened, the plan was for my husband and I to move there and live. We were prepared and excited with the prospect, but it was not to be. The bid went much too high at auction, and someone else bought it. I was crushed. It felt like we had no place we belonged and this just solidified it. It was a day of sadness, a metaphorical 9th of Av. The very next day we saw an ad in the Herald for a nice old house.

We set up an appointment with the realtor and went to see it. It had everything I wanted: a wrap-around porch, a clothes line, peonies growing in the yard, a center hall and original hardwood floors. It had outbuildings and an equipment shed for him. That evening we made an offer for it and drove home in amazement asking ourselves if we had just bought a house. But that's not the cool part. We found out that the house we were buying was built by my husband's great-great-great grandfather and that it had been in the Baker family for almost a century before it was sold outside of the family.

And here we were getting it back! God had restored our own family treasure to us! It wasn't a farm, but it was the heart of the original Peter Baker farm. On July 19, 2002, we closed on this house and we've been here ever since. A few years ago, our neighbor sold us the meadow that borders our yard, thus restoring more of the original property to us. What I've shared here is just the bare bones – the details of the blessings we've been given have been vast and numerous.

Now I've told you all this, but guess what? It gets even better. This week I was thinking about how disappointing house hunting had been for us as newlyweds and all the dead ends we ran into. Even though we didn't know it, God planned it all out for us to be here. He knew we'd love this place and appreciate the personal history we share with it. All we had to do was be faithful and trust, even when things seemed bleak. Then curiosity hit me and I got to wondering when the 10th of Av was in 2002 so I looked it up. Do you know what the actual date was? It was on Friday, July 19th – the exact day that we closed on our house. Insert mic drop. Cue the happy tears.