A Better Plan

 

I like to watch game shows, and recently I was watching one called “Tattletales” where celebrity husbands and wives try to guess how the other will answer a question. I often play along, and this time the question was something like, “What was the biggest scam you ever fell victim to?”

My response related to purchasing property soon after Roland and I married. Actually, I’m not sure it was technically a scam, because I don’t believe that the contractor meant to steal from us. But the bottom line was that we lost our $7,600 down payment, which was a lot of money for us back then.

Our plan was for me to quit my job when we had children and practice law from an office in my home with a separate entrance. That part of the plan worked out, but another part didn’t. Since such homes were rare, we found a blueprint for a house with an in-law-suite and put a down-payment on a lot in a new subdivision, contacted one of the contractors who was building in a new subdivision, and found a lot we liked. Then we entered into a contract for sale with the builder.

As a lawyer, I suppose I should have checked it out better, but what it came down to was that the contractor didn’t own that lot. Apparently it wasn’t unusual to swap lots with other contractors, and he probably expected to do that. Unfortunately, he went bankrupt instead. So we had no lot and no money. We might have been able to purchase the lot from the contractor who did own it, but we would have been out the downpayment in any event, so we decided to look at existing homes instead.

We found one in an established neighborhood closer to stores, good schools, and our church. Even with the loss and the necessary renovations, it cost less money than building would have. The house we purchased had a one-car garage and a two-car garage, both attached, and it was easy to turn the one-car garage into an office. If you look carefully at the photo, you can see the entrance between the two-car-garage and the main house. We raised our children and spent many good years there, moving out only when our parents started using walkers and we realized that the steps would be too much for us at some point.

I don’t know why God let us lose money on the lot before we found the right property. Maybe that one wasn’t on the market yet and we were trying to get ahead of God’s timing. But whatever the reason, we ended up in a better place, figuratively and literally.

But one thing I do know.

When things go wrong, God has a better plan.