I might actually be crazy.

I had envisioned a different life for myself, but as is typically the case, God has other plans for me. I had also not intended to have five children and home school them all. I certainly was never going to go into a remodeling business with my husband.

What happened was so different from my plans and so evident of God's hand I could not deny His intervention. Though I am a concrete, systematical, do-it-by the book person, I found myself doing a wild freefall into a life only the Creator of the universe could have planned.

Steve got back from a military stint wanting to pursue his dream of owning a business. I wanted him to come home, provide a stable income, and help the kids catch up in the math they had neglected while he was gone. I was ready to do battle.

One day he came home and showed me an ad for a cheap mobile home that needed to be remodeled. My initial reaction was to dismiss it, then to be annoyed when he continued to bring it up. When he asked me to pray about it, there was little else I could do.

I prayed about it alright.
“Please, God, help Steve find a real job so he will let go of this silly scheme.”

After a week, Steve saw I was not going to take his request to heart so he called the seller and told her we weren't interested. For two days, the guilt sat heavily on my heart. I looked into his e-mail, got her address, and asked her if she still had the home.

I normally don't interfere in things like this and I think my husband was a little shocked that I did this time. He came to me and asked why I had. I told him I didn't feel as though we had spent enough time in prayer together.

Finally, we prayed together about it. We didn't come up with any sort of clear answer. He still wanted to buy the house, I still wanted him to do something else.

We decided to lay out a fleece before God. If the seller would come down to half her current price and the mobile home park would give us two free months of rent, we would do it. Steve set out to meet with the seller and the park manager.

He called me about an hour after he met with them. The park would only give us one free month, but the current owner was willing to come down to half her price, we could keep her deposit, and, as it was the beginning of a new month, she had already paid for the month.

He signed the papers the next day.