The Toughest Part of the Journey...

The outdoor thermometer was bulging at 104 yesterday. I was sticky and hot. If not for the small apartment air conditioner we bought at Sears during the last 100+ summer heat wave, July 2004, I would have melted into a puddle on the floor. It was on this blazing hot day that we received the mortgage loan papers.

Maybe it's because of the heat this week effecting my hubby and me, but this is probably the toughest part of the journey so far for us. Yeah three months of waiting to find out if the lenders bank would except our short sale offer was nothing compared to this. Waiting and patience seems so easy now (it really wasn't, but it seems like it). I opened the packet up first before Rob got home from work. I wish I had waited.

I was fine up til now. I mean the home inspection went very well. Nothing major came up, only small minor stuff. Even when we got news that the down payment assistance we had planned to use was suspended due to lack of funds, we only had a day of concern until we had a backup plan in place. We accepted the changes and went forward. The monthly payment went up a little and the interest rate was up a .25 point but we crunched all the numbers and everything was still doable.

I opened the packet and I started going through, page after page, trying to make sense of it all. Rob and I know we don't have any experience with buying a home, but at times during the process, we've relied on common sense, hoping that "street smarts" will get us through. I'm finding out very quickly, common sense was not being served on the menu the day the lawyers thought up the system of buying a home.

First, the address of the home was wrong. Second, we found more corrections like, the number of years at our current address, bank accounts stuff etc. But that's all minor, really. That we could handle. Besides, these aren't the final papers. Typos or mistakes are expected on a long loan document like ours. No biggie.

Then we got to the nitty gritty...the numbers. You know the pages that showed the thousands of dollars we would be paying for the home. I had to grab hold of something while I was reading. I thought I would pass out or hyperventilate when I read the amount of interest we would be paying over the life of the loan. You know, 30 years. That's alot of moula at 5.75% or whatever the APR is after figuring in the loan costs. Whew! It definintely was the most sobering moment I've had so far.

The questions starting coming. Even more when Rob came home and we looked at them together. Then our mind, like a factory, starting manufacturing doubt after doubt. They had multiplied while reading through all the pages. Are we doing the right thing? Can we really afford this? Will we be going back into debt? Knowing us, you can understand our reaction. We just spent the last 4 1/2 years paying off all our debts. Plus, we are simple folk. We've always rented, for 25 years of marriage. Small apartments in low income areas. This is really a big step for us. I know they always say this, but it is true...this is the biggest and most expensive decision we have ever made! Very sobering.

I'd like to say we immediately took it to the Lord, but we didn't until after we ruminated on it for a while. It wasn't until bedtime that we prayed and asked God to forgive us for our anxiety and doubts. He brought us both peace so we could sleep but I still felt the consequenses of those doubts today in the form of body stress which made my blood sugars higher.

So, we called our mortgage advisor, Mia. We made an appointment to meet on Saturday at Rob's office. She promises to answer all our questions. Rob and I love this home. We want to close on August 28. But we do need assurances from Mia. The payment has to be affordable for us to go forward. The interest rate needs to be no higher than agreed upon. We are hoping Saturday all will be explained so we can be comfortable and move forward.

Please pray for us to make our decisions wisely. We want to glorify the Lord in all we do. It's still forecasted to really be hot the rest of the week. We are trusting God with the weather and the wisdom needed to go forward. We plan, in between now and Saturday's meeting, to just chill (figuratively and literally). SDG LN