My other Isaac

Three weeks ago, upon finding out that the sale of our rental property was falling through and our renters are moving out, we decided to list our new home for sale. We intend to list the rental property as well and live in whichever one doesn't sell first. This has been a very up and down struggle for both Ken and I.

You see, when we built this home, we put A LOT of ourselves into it. I designed the floorplan myself to perfectly fit our family. We did much of the construction including the electrical, plumbing, flooring, cabinets, brick driveway, paint, and we just this week completed the finished walkout basement. Every detail of this house is a reminder of the year of serious labor we endured. Ken and I both have ongoing physical aches that still bother us 2 years later for the work we did on this house. But, I look out the window as I do dished, and I am greeted with the serene view of the lake and the reflections of trees bouncing off the glassy water. It somehow makes dishes seem not so bad. We love this house. Maybe too much. This is our struggle.

This house has so much of us in it that it almost feels like part of the family. I know that sounds weird, but if you have every labored and toiled to create something perhaps you know what I mean.

Somewhere along the line, it became apparent to us that God was calling us to offer up our creation. Both of us stood in defiance of this at first, but eventually agreed that indeed we should put our dream home on the market. We both felt physically ill as we signed the real estate papers. Is this ,in a small way, how Abraham felt when God asked him to let go of his precious Isaac? Is God testing us to make sure we have not made an false idol of our dwelling place? I don't know. We obey His call on our lives, though we do not understand it. We are, in a sense, offering up our Isaac (meaning our home, not to be confused with our son, Isaac).