Not quite the answer I was looking for, but clear none-the-less.

This is not the post I thought I’d be writing today. Today’s post was supposed to be filled with photos of our brand-spankin’-new RV sitting in our driveway. Sadly, our brand-spankin’-new RV is not actually ours and is not sitting in our driveway, but instead, still on the dealer’s lot in Houston.

Here’s the story…

Let me start by saying that there seemed to be several small road blocks to getting ready to go get the RV. First the bank was being a little cranky about when they would let us have our money from our account (HELLO! OUR MONEY!). Then, once we got our money, the Dealer said the RV would actually not be dealer prepped by Saturday, when Sir D was going to get it. Hummm. They only knew we were coming for a couple of weeks, but okay.

In the days leading up to the pickup, Sir D started to feel more and more apprehensive about this decision. Should we really be spending the $? I mean all you have to do is watch the news to see that perhaps we should not buy an RV but hide all our earthly possessions under our bed or something. (in case you’re a burglar, we did not, in fact, choose this option) Also, things at Sir D’s work have been a little tight for the overall branch…profits are down…concern is high…the thing is we’ve been preparing for almost two years for this. We sold our old RV two years ago and have been diligently waiting and preparing for this new one. This one in Houston is THE ONE that Sir D wants.

But he felt it in his Spirit. Something… We didn’t know what to do. We don’t want to be foolish, and we don’t want to make decisions based on fear…so what do we do?

Well, we decided to put out a fleece. We asked the Lord to cause Sir D to find something wrong with the camper if He did not want us to purchase it at this time.

Down here in Texas it has not rained for a sweet forever but this week? Noting but rain. Sir D drove all the way down to Houston with the boys in the driving rain. He got out and walked all the way down the lot to the RV in the driving rain. He examined the inside and the outside of the RV in the driving rain…and found a water leak.

This water leak would have been undetectable on bright sunshiny Saturday. Also, for various reasons we are aware of and okay with, this RV does not have a warranty so if we’d purchased it on Saturday, we’d be totally financially responsible for fixing the water leak. Sir D felt sad, but resigned. This is the one he wants. But clearly, now was not the time. He showed them the leak and told them he couldn’t purchase it at this time. There was much sadness.

They are going to fix the leak and call us in a month or so. The thing is in a month or so we’ll have a better idea of the financial outlook of Sir D’s branch. Also, the RV will have had the leak fixed and a good once-over from the repair shop. Still, we were sad.

Sir D stopped by his friends house on the way home from Houston to pick up the RV they are loaning us. It is a very generous thing to loan someone your RV and we are extremely grateful. We would not be able to go on this trip if not for their generosity. And while I don’t want to sound ungrateful, the floor plan in this RV is not very conducive to the comfortable sleeping of 5 adult size humans and one little girl. So it’s going to be a little tricky, but we’ll figure it out.

When Sir D and the boys finally got home after a long, wet and somewhat depressing day, they found the ceiling leaking in the girls’ room. Sigh. I think perhaps we know where some of the RV money is going. A new roof. We knew it was coming but we thought we had a little more time before we needed to replace it.

I don’t know what the Lord has planned. I know He answered our prayer. It was clear. It is just really hard to hear ‘No’ from God when we really wanted to year ‘Yes’. We’re praying that it was not so much a ‘No’, but at ‘Not yet’, and when the RV is fixed all will be right with the economy and our roof and we can snatch it up. We serve a big God, he can do that right?