I can tell when I might need to write about something because I can’t seem to get it out of my mind. The words form into sentences in my thoughts, and I circle back to them over and over again as they compose themselves in different ways repeatedly until I can sit down and get the words out on paper. This is one of those times.
These past few weeks have been an incredibly intimate learning experience between the heavenly Father and me. Whew. Lots of questions, prayer, spilling all the not-so-pretty details to my closest friends along with my fair share of tears. I have to preface this story by admitting that this lesson I’ve been learning is one not everyone struggles with. It’s not something awfully tragic and world-shattering like cancer or infertility or divorce. Yet somehow, it IS shattering my world a little bit… because it’s reshaping my worldview. And with the shattering comes a little bit of suffering.
Last year brought immense growth for my business. Somewhat ironically, Justin and I were living in my dad’s basement paying a (comparatively) low rent in the hopes we could save up a sizable down payment to buy our first house.. which, we did.
We hit our goal late last summer and starting shopping for a home. Our home. A place we could put roots down and maybe, just maybe… begin praying about trying to start a family. This is such a sweet, precious, sacred dream in my heart. One only God knows how much I want (and yet naturally am so terrified of) at the same time.
All the changes, the planning, the decisions, the wisdom required… all I could think about as we were home shopping was being WISE about the choices we had now. I had so many questions:
How much should a mortgage be to allow me the freedom to stay home and not have to work until our kids our in school?
How much higher would a mortgage be if we chose to live closer to Justin’s work so he could be home before 6:00pm and not commute 3 hours in a car every day?
How much of our house fund should we actually put into the house when considering our country is statistically and historically overdue for a recession?
How much is too much to spend on interest?
How much do we need set aside for repairs and maintenance?
What will our emergency fund look like after this huge purchase?
There were so many questions, but I knew God would give us clarity. I was just so excited. I remember spending an entire Saturday last August at an antique shop, and I was SO close to buying an entire bedroom set for “our house,” where we’d finally have a second bedroom to host guests. (The only reason I didn’t buy that furniture set was because on my walk from the store’s porch to the checkout counter, someone put a SOLD sticker on them. Looking back, this was just one of many interventions on God’s part to gently tell us, “It’s not time yet.”)
We must have looked at 30 houses in the span of a month. Each new one we’d find, my heart would flutter thinking that maybe THIS was the one… but we’d get there, step out of the car, and everything in me would feel like a giant STOP sign was being put up in front of us. Justin felt the same.
At one point after being tired of the run down, outdated, “super commute” houses going for $500,000, we sat down with a developer and excitedly picked out all of the options to build ourselves a brand new home.
I had read in all my research that it only makes financial sense to invest in a house if you plan to be there for, at a minimum, 5 years. This meant we wanted at least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and ideally, a backyard to host birthday parties and let our dogs (and kids) run around and play. Our down payment we had saved was also serving as a stepping stone to “skip” the starter home and invest in a more “forever” (longer term) home. Shopping for a long term purchase like this at the age of 25 is just a little daunting, to say the least… but we picked out our custom home options, crunched the numbers, and sat down to go over all of the final details.
Could we afford it? Yes.
Was everyone – bank, real estate agent, and trusted family and friends – telling us to do it? Yes.
Was God leading us in this decision with peace and clarity?
That’s where we felt our “no.”
It just did. not. feel. right.
I knew in the back of mind that if we didn’t do this, I’d feel like a failure. I knew how deeply people hold the belief that renting is “throwing money away.” I knew how “stupid” people would think we were if they knew how much we had saved up, and yet still weren’t “investing in the real estate market.” I knew choosing to NOT buy a home wasn’t going to be the story everyone wanted to see pop up on their Facebook news feed, or the story that I wanted to tell about how amazing and successful our life together was going.
I also knew there were rumors about Amazon and Apple building their new headquarters in Northern Virginia, and that we better get in the market NOW before they announce their plans and prices sky rocket even more.
I knew more than anything that it wouldn’t feel like we were accomplishing our goals by moving back to an apartment. I knew this wasn’t at all what we had wanted or planned for.
And yet… there it was. A clear, distinctive, unquestionable and undeniable gut instinct, mental red flag, and heartfelt hesitation to NOT buy a home.
A month into our house shopping, we traveled out of the state to check out another city to potentially relocate to. It would be much more affordable anyway, and if we could have more control over the cost of the house, we would definitely be able to buy with more peace then… right? Maybe the hesitation would be gone. Maybe this was the next step to our home and our future family.
When we were in this city, I had a dream where I was face to face with a literal angel who told me with a smile on his face, “I have good news! We found your house. It will happen soon.” (K, wow.)
I woke up knowing in my heart that this dream meant we were not going to find our house in Virginia before the year was up. The word that stuck out to me was, “soon.” Soon doesn’t mean “now.”
After all the hesitation, frustration, and closed doors we’d had up to this point, this dream was the final nail in the coffin to our house shopping last Fall. So, we signed a lease on a one bedroom apartment 5 minutes from Justin’s work and resumed our married life together living with just each other (and a much shorter commute for Justin).
Weeks after we moved in, Amazon officially announced their plans to open their new headquarters in Crystal City, and with it, their plans to crush my hopes and dreams of ever buying a house near Justin’s work for less than $700,000.
I found myself crying alone in my bedroom on a Tuesday morning, utterly confused at what God had planned for us.
Why did he give us such hesitation to buy when maybe we should have? When we COULD have? When on paper, it would make total sense to have bought a house?? Why was this so difficult for us? What was wrong with us? What was wrong with me?
Maybe I didn’t work hard enough. Maybe if I took on a “few more clients” we could just save up cash to buy the house outright. Maybe it was our relationship that was the problem. Maybe we just couldn’t agree on what was best. Maybe it was us. Maybe it was my business. Maybe it was all my fault.
In my mind, fear raged in this moment.
Everyone could see what a mess our life was…
We lived in a basement to “save for a house” only to not get a house.
Talked about how God would provide only for God to “not” provide.
“Traveled the world” instead of making better financial decisions.
Worked “so hard” but apparently weren’t all that successful if we were living in a one bedroom apartment.
Every time a similar comment would be made in passing, this fear was reaffirmed, knowing that people believe things about us that we know aren’t true.
This season has been so humbling. It requires swallowing my pride and really leaning into what God says is true about us. It requires not finding my identity and who I am in what people’s perception is of me, but rather to not only believe but CLING to the promise that He does have a plan for us, He knows what’s best, He speaks to us and shows us the way when we pray to Him… and he did. He gave us clear direction. We followed. And now here I was, literally crying out to Him, “Why?”
Why did you grow my business so much only for us to not be able to reap the rewards?
Why am I working so hard?
Why is this desire one you’ve given me so strongly?
Why is it so sacred in my heart, so special to me, when everything we do in our power doesn’t seem to get us any closer, and time feels like it’s running out so quickly?
These are the questions that have swirled around my head and heart for the past six months. Six months of honestly, being mad at God. My inner voice went something like this when talking to Him:
“I can’t see or understand anything and nothing I do seems to solve any problems… so I’m just going to keep working harder. Because I can have what I want if I just TRY harder. If we just save more money, we can bypass all of this hesitation and all of these stop signs because if we have a 50% down payment instead of 25%, then we really will be able to buy (and we won’t need any of YOUR help)!!!”
This was my attempt to take control. I’ve been learning in counseling just how much I’ve struggled with surrendering control for the majority of my life because I have believed the dangerous lie that when I’m not in control, bad things happen.
The thought at the root of all my anxieties is, “When I’m not in control, something bad will happen.”
This was the line written and circled on a piece of paper in my counselor’s office the day before we left on our anniversary trip to the Dominican Republic. It was at the end of an exercise where we unpack anxieties and fears and question what they’re really about. We dug deep. Then we dug deeper. She kept asking me, “why?” And then, it happened.
We uncovered a lie whose roots are so deep, hearing her say the lie out loud led me to nod my head in agreement rather than shake my head in disbelief.
We cried. We prayed. I left my session feeling like I have so much to learn about myself and so many deeply broken places to heal in my heart. One of the last things my counselor said in my session was, “This is a good time to be digging into this… to pursue healing before the next season of your life.”
Timing. It really is everything, isn’t it?
This is going to seem off topic, but bear with me.
Back in April, I got an email from my CPA at 11:50pm on April 15th letting me know he wouldn’t be getting around to filing our tax return in time. (*Cue heavy breathing by Type A me, who likes to file paperwork in time… especially when it comes to, um, the IRS.)
Some background information: I have worked with this CPA for nearly five years. I pay him to calculate what I owe for quarterly taxes throughout the year based on my numbers for that quarter while factoring in our combined income information from the previous year. It sounds a little complicated, and I felt like it was… so, I outsourced it to him.
I trusted that what he was telling me to pay each quarter would fall close to what we’d owe for the year. In previous years we’d even gotten refunds come April. So when he sent this message letting us know our return would be late, but that he was filing an extension and we’d be just fine because he had taken a look at our numbers and we’d be breaking even, I tried to calm any panicky feelings about not filing on time, trusting all the articles I was reading that filing for an extension wasn’t a bad thing at all.
I definitely trusted that part about us breaking even, because I’d been sending him numbers all year and paying him to calculate my taxes per quarter, so I was sure we’d be fine. Still was not fun to be filing late, but at least we wouldn’t owe any money or any penalties.
When I didn’t hear from my CPA for a few weeks after Tax Day, I couldn’t wait any longer and let him know we’d be working with someone else. I wanted to get our return filed and have 2018 paperwork over and done with, especially when it came to the IRS! I sent all of our paperwork to our new CPA and waited to hear back that he had compiled the return and just needed us to sign.
The second night we were on our anniversary trip in Punta Cana, I got the message containing our return.
I opened it and my stomach dropped.
I read on the page, “You still owe $15,500 in federal taxes.”
What?
…What?
HOW?!
My heart rate must have gone through the roof in this moment. That, or it stopped completely. I just remember feeling like I was having the beginning signs of a panic attack.
Here we were on an expensive vacation in the Caribbean, taken because we had saved the money up for it. Owing $15,000 MORE in taxes on top of the nearly TRIPLE of that amount we had already paid for 2018 was not anywhere on our radar.
I thought for sure something had to be wrong.
There was a typo. He miscalculated. He didn’t include the QBI deduction that was just passed into law last year. I frantically texted him throughout the evening, trying to figure out what was going on. There was just no way we owed THAT kind of money on top of my quarterly estimates and Justin’s withholdings.
My sweet sister back in the States hopped on Turbo Tax immediately and started inputting our numbers. She spent her Saturday afternoon doing our taxes because I was so upset. (It’s the kindest thing for her to have done that.)
My heart sank when she sent me the text message, “I’m getting that you owe the same amount your new CPA is telling you.”
Picture this… palm trees and an ocean breeze. The smell of coconuts and pineapple in the air. Clear, blue Caribbean waters… and me sobbing into Justin’s chest 15 feet from the shoreline in an attempt to hide my breakdown from carefree vacationers in their surrounding cabanas.
I was so angry. I was angry at myself… where did I go wrong? I was angry at the government. Why work so hard when 46% of my net income is taken away from me? I was angry at myself (again). Why didn’t I know more about tax law? Why couldn’t I have seen this coming? I was also angry at our CPA. How could we have been so off in our estimations and payments? Why did I pay him hundreds of dollars to make these calculations only if they were going to fall $15,000 short?!
Most of all, I was angry at God. I refused to speak to Him as this entire situation was unfolding. I refused to pray or let the Holy Spirit speak to me in the midst of this anger. All I could think (in my very dramatic fashion) was… “How could you allow this to happen? You don’t care about us at all. We will NEVER have a home or a family, and there’s nothing you’re ever going to do to help.”
That money was going to have to come straight out of our house fund.
Believe me when I say this felt absolutely devastating in the moment. I was heartbroken. “Why even try?” I asked Justin (who, by the way, was completely calm, cool, and collected through this entire situation… it was just me having the freak out). My emotions felt so strong in these moments. The fear. The longing. The unknown. The feeling of abandonment by God. I actually had the thought, “We are never going to be able to have kids…” begin to take a STRONG hold in my mind while all of this was going on, and it’s THAT lie that was producing all these tears and distress.
When you let that kind of extreme, jumping-to-conclusions statement (my friend Callie calls these statements “vows we make to ourselves”) take root in your heart, you begin to make appropriately extreme statements about other things in your life to… like your relationship with God. Your relationship with others. The love and respect you have towards yourself.
“When I am not in control, something bad will happen.”
Here we were again. I was now completely out of control of understanding our finances, our taxes, my business calculations, and totally out of control of preventing $15,500 from being taken out of our hard-earned house fund.
My hopes and dreams were in that fund.
As much as I hate to admit this, a huge portion of my faith in our future rested comfortably on the number in that savings account. And now it was being attacked, and with it, me. My faith. My dreams. My hope in the future.
It’d be more than enough to tell you how powerful of a lesson this was in idolatry. We could end this blog post here and it would tell you so much about how our God cares about protecting our hearts from resting in all the wrong things.
But of course it doesn’t end there… because it’s our wildly abundant, awe-inspiring God we’re talking about. Of course there’s so much more.
We got home from our trip and the first thing I did was pull up my income and expenses spreadsheet. Maybe there was a typo. Maybe there was something I missed. I hoped and prayed there was something we could do to lessen this blow.
I found one major mistype. I had mixed up my logging for my federal and state payments for quarter 4 of 2018.
I had logged that I paid thousands more in state than in federal (that would never make sense) and once I switched it around to how it should have been logged, I sent it to my CPA to see what the revised numbers were.
I knew we’d still owe something, though. By this point, we’d figured out that our previous CPA had neglected to include any of Justin’s income in our quarterly payments (!!!) because he assumed Justin’s work was withholding the correct amount of Justin’s paychecks. (Oh my.)
I’ve learned quite a few things about tax law this past month, but in a nutshell, if you’re married filing jointly, both of you can’t assume that the first $75,000 of your income is in the 12% tax bracket. (Obviously.) Someone’s income is going to be FULLY taxed at the next bracket up, which is the 22% tax bracket.
So, there was problem number one. Justin’s work was withholding based on the first $75,000 of his income only being taxed in the smaller tax bracket, and my CPA was doing the same. Yikes. I wondered what the final blow was going to be once I received the revised return from my new CPA.
When I got it back, I took the biggest sigh of relief as I read we’d only owe just over $9,000.
Leave to a traumatic situation such as this to bring relief over owing “only” $9,000! I was praising the Lord for that tax bill versus what it COULD have been based on the numbers we’d seen initially and had been shocked by!
I was filling my best friend in on all these details (through a still very raw, emotional recollection about all that had been going on since getting back from our trip) when she said, “Thank God you didn’t buy a house!”
Thank God you didn’t buy a house.
Thank God you didn’t buy a house.
I realized then what was happening.
If we had bought a house last Fall, we wouldn’t have had a cash down payment fund to easily tap into for this significant, unexpected tax bill. *Cue God’s mic drop.*
Could we have tapped into long-term investments? Sure, but not as easily, and we were already late on this payment. Might we have still had that money in a savings account if we had bought a house? Sure, but not likely, especially with such a recent expensive purchase (I’ve heard buying a home comes with plenty of expenses of its own). We had only planned on leaving about $10,000 in our cash emergency fund for home repairs or unexpected bills… and I am positive that at least part of that fund would have been tapped into by now for some unforeseen home repair or bill, especially with the condition of most of the houses we were looking at.
If we had bought a house, that $9,000 tax bill would have brought a whole lot more stress and heartache and tension with it.
Instead, we were able to say, “Well, at least we have this money on hand,” and transfer it over with the simple click of a button.
I cringe thinking of how this might have played out any other way. If God had answered my prayers by giving me what I wanted.
Only God knows what our future holds. He knows the desires of our hearts better than we do. He knows how greatly Justin and I desire to be good stewards of our finances more than we desire buying a home, even if that means starting a family in a place we didn’t initially envision starting a family in. He knows our deepest wants and guides them, and only He kept us from walking down a path that would have brought more confusion, stress, bondage and debt.
He’s so, so good. And He’d be good even if we were experiencing all of those things – He’d be teaching us new, different lessons there. But I know where we are now is exactly where He wants us to be.
The day before we left for our anniversary trip, the trip we’d walk through receiving this not so fun, confusing bad news together… I led a Bible study about God’s sovereignty. Except, for some reason, I only got through the intro of my bible study that day.
I remember staring down at the page and saying, “Well, we have all our material already for next week!!” I had no idea how much I’d need that material. The truth on the pages about how God is FULLY in control, even when we think WE are.
I had written at the top of that page, “God knows everything we’re going to do. He sees our entire lives laid out before Him like the face of a clock. He can see where we’re going and where it’s going to end. He sees the beginning and the end at the same time, and He moves the secondhand along in the right ways, always at the right time.”
I wrote at the very top of my notes for that Bible study, “God does things His own way.”
What may feel counterproductive may actually be the most productive thing He could have you do.
What feels frowned upon by society can often be the most honorable decision in our Father’s eyes.
One thing is for sure: My desire for a house, a home, and a family has only just NOW, after this not-so-fun but so necessary situation, been fully and completely handed over to the Lord with not just open hands but a genuinely open heart.
He knows what’s best.
He knows what lies ahead. WE don’t.
My friend Katelyn texted me during one of my early breakdowns about the tax bill (when we still thought we owed $15,000, “I don’t know why God is keeping you in a season of waiting for a home. What I do know is that he knows the desires of your heart better than you do.”
God knows it’s not about “buying a house” for me. He knew that when I couldn’t see it clearly.
What I want, more than anything, is a life with Justin that brings us joy, purpose, peace, and countless opportunities to live for the glory of God’s kingdom and our REAL forever home in heaven.
As much as my heart envisions a fenced in backyard and kids running around, he knows there’s something I want more.
The desires of our hearts are SACRED to the Lord, especially when those desires are pure and good and right.
He loves us so much.
He loves us enough to step in and stop us from doing what would otherwise look and feel okay (and even praise-worthy by the world) when it’s for our greater, ultimate good.
We can’t control housing markets or economic recessions. We can’t control tax laws. We can’t even control our ability to be healthy and able to work!
What we can control is our release of control.
The fact that my counselor and I were digging into my struggles with control and faith in God’s sovereignty JUST before walking through this is so clearly proof of God’s involvement… but also a beautiful display of his deeply passionate, tender, and unconditional love for us.
A month ago I sat in my counseling sessions, shaking my head at the statement “God is fully in control – there’s nothing you can do to control everything that happens to you and the people you love.”
I did not believe my counselor when she spoke those words to me. Now I do.
Sometimes our God is a God who walks us through suffering. Not with the promise of removing all our sorrows today, but with the promise of removing all our suffering SOMEDAY. Some tomorrow.
I am so glad we didn’t buy a house last Fall. So, so glad. So grateful. And so ready to trust God with whatever comes next, even if that’s 8 more years in this one bedroom apartment. (Well, let’s make that two bedroom at least. Haha.) As we pray, He leads. And we can rest knowing that where He is leading us is what’s truly and absolutely for our BEST, wholly good, completely full and fulfilled life in Him.
God, you are in control. You do all things for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose.
I thank you for releasing me from the bondage and heavy burden of believing I am in control and can control every last piece of my life.
Thank you for freeing me from the crippling anxiety I’ve battled for years because of that deeply rooted belief.
Thank you for the hard lessons.
Thank you for the tears.
Thank you for the sanctity of marriage that reflects your unconditional, ever supportive love for us.
Thank you that our dreams don’t depend on whether or not we buy a house.
Thank you for loving me. Thank you for everything you are.
I will praise you to the end of my days!
(And Justin, there’s no one else I’d rather be living this unpredictable, adventurous, unexpected life with!)
Photo by the BEST Disney World photographer, Jennifer Pierce!!
