What Lifts Us Up

This accounting is actually about two different dreams from the same night. I even feel that I was given to understand their meaning, so I consider them especially important.

In the first dream, I was at a house with my extended family for some happy gathering, and – this is where dream special effects comes in so handy – even though the windows were closed, a wind started blowing through the house. Riding on the wind were several thousand balloons, each about two feet in diameter, and several thousand birds, about the size of pigeons. They arrived in sets, e.g., two hundred blue balloons followed by two hundred blue birds; then two hundred red balloons followed by two hundred red birds; 200 green balloons, 200 green birds; etc. They were all moving remarkably fast, and it was a testament to dream technology that none of the balloons popped in the little house, even though they were flying through the walls and lamps and couches. None of them flew through people, however. We were trying to catch the balloons, naturally (who wouldn’t want a big shiny balloon?) while trying to stay out of “poop range” of all those birds (not that any of the birds did anything, but how were we to know the capabilities of birds who could fly through walls?).

I don’t remember who it was, but someone standing near me caught one of the balloons; but not me. After all the balloons and birds had gone, which only took about a minute’s time, we all began to hear this strange sound: sort of like a warning siren, only higher pitched and all over the place all at once. Other than the fact that it sounded irritating and a little eerie, it didn’t bother me. But other people around me (NOT the one with the balloon, though) all faced the same direction and stood at attention while the sound was going on. Once it stopped, they stood still for another moment, and then they all turned toward the person with the balloon, and the few of us standing nearby who also did not seem to be affected. Everyone’s eyes now glowed with a red fire, and they began to come toward us. I “knew” in that way of dreams that we were going to be eaten alive – literally – by these creatures who until recently had been the people that I loved.

Fortunately, my brain decided that this was not where it wanted to be, and woke me up. Or perhaps it was the baby crying – it’s hard to say. In any event, the baby was crying when I awoke; Mark had already gone back to see which part of the baby might need attention, so I got his bottle ready just in case. That turned out to be the problem, so I spent several minutes holding the baby and propping up his bottle for him.

After he had finished and was sleepily ensconced in his crib once again, I returned to my bed and fell asleep again. At first, I didn’t think the second dream had anything to do with the other one because I was watching my older son play in a sporting event (it was either football or soccer, but for the life of me now I cannot recall which – it may have even switched back and forth in the dream or been some wacky combination of the two).

At the halftime, the wind began to blow and over the horizon came these thousands of balloons and birds again, in the same pattern as before. We thought that it was just a halftime show at first – albeit a rather spectacular one, especially for an elementary school game. The balloons came from a different direction each time the colors changed, sometimes even having one color beginning before the other had ended. Being the perpetual engineer, even in my sleep, I was wondering how they were able to get the wind to do that without the slightest hint of turbulence. Then I started to get a vague feeling that I had seen this balloon stunt in another dream (I realized that I was dreaming, but at the same time everything in the dream seemed “real”), although I did not remember what happened afterward at this point.

There was a playground near the playing field, with a free-standing slide – one of the neat tall ones. A friend and I had the idea to run to the top of the slide and catch a few balloons as we slid down. I caught two as I went down, but my friend didn’t catch any. There was also a reporter near me, and her photographer, who wanted to get a picture of me with the two balloons for the local paper to report the phenomenon. Just as I turned to give my second balloon to my friend, that strange sound began in this dream as well, and everyone (except for me, my friend, the reporter, and the photographer) turned in the same direction and stood at attention again.

For some reason that I no longer recall, my friend ran over to a trashcan to look for something she had lost, and by the time I got over to her, the balloon that I was going to give her had withered. The sound had stopped, and everyone turned to look at us. I tried to get my friend and the other two to run away with me, and thought they were behind me. I ran over to the slide again, and went up to the top. But when I looked back, some of the newly demonized people were converging on my friend and the other two, while another mob was heading toward me.

The wind began to pick up again, and it finally occurred to me that these balloons represented the gift of faith. Several other conclusions were also brought to my mind:
- Each person has to have his or her own portion of faith. Being around someone who has faith may protect you for a short time, but it will not save you in the end.
- Each person has to reach out for his or her faith while the “wind” of the Spirit is blowing. Once it stops I can’t give my faith to someone else by myself – it is for the Holy Spirit to give, not me.
- Each person has to hold on tightly to his or her faith. If I let go at any time, I will be dead – or worse.

As the people-things began climbing up the slide where I had conveniently trapped myself (duhr!), I “knew” that God wanted me to rely on my faith and let Him take over. I closed my eyes and jumped so that the wind could carry me, not really knowing (or even believing) whether it would. I don’t know where I went, but I knew that I was out of danger. I had a vision of several places in a fast-sequence sort of thing; places where I was taken by my faith, to be sheltered for a time before moving on to another spot.

I was allowed to wake up at that point, before finding out what happened to the rest of the poor world (I never found out what the birds were all about either, unless they were just another manifestation of the Holy Spirit). But it was clear to me that now I must tell all those I love – all those I can – PLEASE reach out for your faith while the wind is still blowing. God sends *so* many opportunities to find Him, in ways that are easy for us to grasp. Look for Him; He is waiting for you.

Realty Bites

Wow. I guess I really should update the site more often… it wouldn't take so long. Here is the latest house saga, Act III.

A buyer (Annie) tendered a contract on our house (the third contract on our house) at the beginning of October, with a closing date of October 31st. Things looked very positive: she had a checking account (pronounced “verifiable income”) and there were supposedly not one but two lenders willing to give her a loan.

On or around the middle of the month, our realtor (Kathy) got a call from the buyer’s realtor (Robert) asking if the closing date could be moved up to the 23rd. Great, we said, go for it! Well, the 23rd came and went – with no closing. The mortgage broker (Jay, from a company in Texas), with whom Robert and Annie had been dealing, said that the closing needed to be pushed back a day or two. Then we found out that the appraisal, which we had been told was not an issue for the loan, became a problem, because the contract price was $1750 over the appraisal price. We agreed to reset the price of the house to match the appraisal price, and thought that took care of the problem.

The “day or two” stretched out to become “back to the original date” of the 31st. The 31st came and went – with no closing. We found out that Annie was told on the 27th that she needed to have a certain amount of funds in her checking account for a certain number of consecutive days (7). She deposited the funds into her account that day, beginning the seven-day period. I found that particularly galling – they knew before the weekend that there was no way to close on the 31st, but didn’t bother to tell us about it until the supposed closing day.

Now the NEW closing date was going to be Monday the 6th of November. In the meantime, Jay admitted to Robert that what had happened was that there were (as previously mentioned) two lenders. The first lender was the one that had asked for a closing on the 23rd, but was only able to qualify Annie for a 95% loan. Since Annie needs a 100% loan, this was a problem. But now he was trying to go with the second lender, who was going to offer a 100% loan, which was why the appraisal became an issue so late in the game, and why they “only just” found out about the seven-day funds thing. They were trying to work up a whole new loan without telling anyone, including Annie!

That was what we had heard as of Wednesday, November 1st. That was the last day anyone ever heard from Jay, the mortgage broker. Robert could not get hold of him; Kathy could not get hold of him (even though, as the seller’s realtor and not the buyer’s realtor, Jay didn’t *have* to talk to Kathy anyway; but he had been talking to her because at first Robert was not telling us anything and we were having to find everything out through other sources); the title company could not get hold of him; etc.

On November 6th, we found out that – would you believe it? – we weren’t going to close… again. Kathy got the idea of getting the lending company’s name from the title company and calling them directly to find out what was happening. This company (located in California) told us that the loan was still in underwriting (Jay had been telling us all along that it was out of underwriting and that he had no idea what the hold-up was), and that they were waiting on a bank statement from last year from Annie. Kathy called Robert and told him about it, which was also news to him, and Annie faxed her statement within an hour of finding out this latest tidbit of news. I really feel sorry for Annie; she has been trying so hard to be prompt and do everything that needs to be done, and these jerks aren’t even telling her what she needs to get done. Anyway, we were told that – with this document – they would be able to wrap things up and we would close on Friday, November 10th.

Today is the 9th, of course, and Kathy called the lender to make sure that everything was set to close tomorrow as scheduled. I have to warn you to hold on to your hats - you only THOUGHT things were complicated before. Just wait. The “lender” told Kathy that since Annie was only able to provide one bank statement from 2005, and not all 12, she was only going to be offered a 95% loan, so they were trying another lender….

Now, just a minute, said Kathy, I thought that you told me that *you* were the lenders; what’s this about going to another lender? As it turns out, this company is really another brokerage firm, and that the reason no one was hearing from Jay was because he had given Annie’s loan to another company without telling anyone!!!

When Robert and Annie heard this, they finally decided that there are probably lenders right here in town that will be just fine, and have been pursuing that option. And I have to admit that I am even leaving out details that might get too confusing, if that tells you anything...

In the meantime, we are still waiting: still trusting that somehow this is what God wants for us, and still hopeful that everything will turn out for the best. But I have to say that the uncertainty of this situation is really not pleasant, and there are times when I would prefer for God’s timetable to speed up a bit.

I’ll post a nice BIG entry when we are finally homeless!! :^)