One step forward, two steps back

It's been a while since I last posted about the sale of our condo. That's probably because we've had so many ups and downs that I felt I was always contradicting myself. First it was that we would be closing X day and moving Y, then that got pushed back a week, then a month. First we were having an inspection being done while we were on the cruise, and then we found out that the buyer decided to forgo the inspection. And stioll, the craziness continues. Thankfully, we seem to be in really good shape with the sale of the condo. According to the buyer's loan officer today, we will be all set to close next Monday, so we are moving this weekend! We ended up not getting the house I mentioned in my previous post, but found another short sale in the same neighborhood. Our offer was approved in less than two weeks by the bank, so we were on our way to moving into a house only about a week after closing on our condo.

Well, then the delays started. The bank wasn't providing our agent with the actual approval letter, but told us just to proceed as if we had it. That's all well and good for them, but "proceeding" meant a.) starting the loan paperwork and b.) incurring non-refundable costs on inspections and appraisals. Unfortunately, the first was not possible (the loan could not proceed without that bank approval) and the second wasn't wise (why should we incur expense simply because some agent we've never met said we had approval, which she was saying based on the word of some third party since she wasn't in possession of the approval either?). So, we sat and waited...and waited...and waited. Two weeks later, the bank FINALLY sends the letter, and now we are frantically trying to meet the deadlines stipulated in our original contract with the owners and rush our bank to complete our loan paperwork quickly. And, it was looking pretty good...until today. Our loan officer called and the appraisal on the home came back $7,000 too low. We are now left with one of three possible scenarios:

1. Take $7,000 of our down payment and give it to the bank, resulting in a higher PMI payment and money that's not doing anything for us as far as equity--or, in other words, pay $7,000 more than the house is worth. Um...no thanks!
2. Go back to the bank and ask that they accept a sale price that's $7,000 less to match the appraised price, and hope the bank reviews our appraisal, agrees, and lowers the price (and hopefully does this super, super fast so we don't delay our contract too long).
3. Go back to the bank and ask that they accept a sale price that's $7,000 less to match the appraised price, after which the bank says they want another opinion and goes through the process of getting a BPO and/or another appraisal done before they begin negotiating with us on the final sale price, which could take months to complete.

So, needless to say, option 2 is what we're hoping for, but we are back to being in limbo--there's nothing we can do but sit and what to hear what the bank is going to do. As I was thinking stewing on this tonight, I've had a hard time not getting discouraged. We really like this house, even though it's by no means our dream house. It will have some room to grow, but we love the neighborhood and we have been so excited about all that home ownership will finally provide us with--a garage, a backyard, a basement, a garden--that to have this comes up feels like we're losing it all when it was so very close. We have been so lucky to have this process go so quickly--the sale of our condo in less than 24 hours, the approval of a short sale in just a few weeks--that any delay feels like it's all just been too good to be true. Now, I'm not writing about all this because I want sympathy or pity--I don't. I know we have been truly blessed so far in this process, and we're keenly aware of how many of our good friends in the ward would kill to be in our shoes. I've mainly been explaining all this to provide a (very long) lead-in to one of the most powerful talks I've ever heard, and which I am re-reading tonight. This talk was given by Elder Oaks at a BYU devotional in the winter of 2002, while I was in Nauvoo. At the time, I felt he was giving it specifically for me, as I had spent the past year struggling with frustration that life was not going the way I wanted it to go. The previous semester I had spent practically throwing myself at a guy who lead me on, I was rooming with the girl who was engaged to my best friend that I secretly had very strong feelings for, I was taking a semester off from my major, and I was hoping to serve a mission in about 18 months when I turned 21 despite my frustrations that I had been at BYU for "so long" and still wasn't married (yes, I was actually freaking out about not being married when I was 19!). So, anyway, this talk made me sit back and remind myself that a.) I wasn't as old as I thought, and b.) the Lord really knew better than I did about how my life should go, and I should just shut up and listen instead of telling Him how it was going to work. Now...fast forward 10 years, and B1 and I are feeling very scared. We are about to sell our condo with its lovely low mortgage payment and move away from our ward that we love so much, and we had no idea where we were going to go or if we could even find some place that we could afford. B1 was more afraid than I was, for some strange reason--usually when it comes to lack of faith, I take the cake. But this talk from ten years prior popped in my head, and we read it, and again I felt that Elder Oaks had given it for me...but for the now-me, as it applied in a whole new way.

I wanted to include a few of my favorite parts from his talk. Maybe this is just for me so I have easy access to my thoughts on this subject, but maybe this will help someone out there in blogland too.

• "In all the important decisions in our lives, what is most important is to do the right thing. Second, and only slightly behind the first, is to do the right thing at the right time."
• "The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith means trust—trust in God’s will, trust in His way of doing things, and trust in His timetable."
• "The Lord’s timing also applies to the important events of our personal lives. A great scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants declares that a particular spiritual experience will come to us 'in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will' (D&C 88:68). This principle applies to revelation and to all of the most important events in our lives: birth, marriage, death, and even our moves from place to place. It is not enough that we are going in the right direction. The timing must be right, and if the time is not right, our actions should be adjusted to the Lord’s timetable as revealed by His servants."
• "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares us for whatever life brings. This kind of faith prepares us to deal with life’s opportunities—to take advantage of those that are received and to persist through the disappointments of those that are lost."
• "If we have faith in God and if we are committed to the fundamentals of keeping His commandments and putting Him first in our lives, we do not need to plan every single event—even every important event—and we should not feel rejected or depressed if some things—even some very important things—do not happen at the time we had planned or hoped or prayed."

So, let's hope I can do as Elder Oaks suggested, and take comfort in letting the Lord take control. Otherwise, I can only expect horrible heartburn in the near future as we anxiously wait the bank's decision.