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Do you believe in destiny?  I sometimes wonder if the things that happen to us are all part of some sort of divine plan, a pre-designed arrangement of events that we’re all supposed to just passively walk through, or if it’s really just us creating our own experiences.  I mean, maybe God doesn’t have a plan.  You know?  Maybe he set it all into motion in the first place, and now he just sits back, sips his tea, and watches, knowing full well that it’ll all be okay no matter what happens, because we’re all just coming back to him in the end anyway.  Maybe having a “plan” wouldn’t have been all that entertaining.

This question has my undivided attention these days, which would be rather frustrating if I needed an actual answer to it, because it’s not a question that one could possibly ever know the answer to.  But I don’t need an actual answer.  I just like to think about it.

I tend to go back and forth with it because while there are times when it seems like God couldn’t possibly have a plan; when bad things happen for example, there are other times when it seems like something couldn’t possibly be happening without a rather concentrated dose of divine intervention.  And if we’re creating our own experiences exclusively - our bad thoughts creating our bad experiences and our goods thoughts creating our good ones – this doesn’t explain Autism.  My son’s “bad thoughts” didn’t create his Autism.  His Autism is a gift directly from God.

That’s an interesting statement, isn’t it?  My husband used to say to me, “One day, you, too, will be grateful for the Autism in our lives.”

Now, leaving aside the condescension expressed in this statement (my husband’s ever advanced spiritual development as compared to mine), it’s still an interesting statement.  I mean, grateful?  How could one possibly ever get grateful for such a heartbreaking disorder?  And I didn’t understand it at all until I began to understand it.  And do you know what’s helping me to understand it?  My book.

I’m writing my book now, which I think I’ve mentioned before.  And while I’ve been sifting through a lot of the “bad things” that happened while my brother and I were growing up, which hasn’t been easy at all I must admit, I’m also seeing all of the little spots where God was alive and well and thoroughly involved the whole way through it.  It’s been fascinating, so far, to go back and look at it through the eyes that I have now. 

Maybe the reason I drew more Autism into my life (via my children) was that I wasn’t healed up about the things that went on with my brother yet (and I’m not talking about a conscious decision here, of course - instead I’m making purely spiritual guesses).  Or maybe I didn’t draw any of the Autism to me at all.  Maybe it was simply handed to me.  And maybe I’m supposed to just “take what I get and don’t throw a fit” (which is what they taught my son in kindergarten).  Maybe I’m supposed to be grateful, or, at the very least, find the good things in whatever experiences God has given me.  Maybe that’s the only way God can get into them.

I guess the thing that’s been occurring to me over and over again is that maybe the answer to my question is that it’s a little bit of both.  Maybe we create our own experiences, for the most part, but are also occasionally afforded a free gift.  I say this because throughout the course of my life, there have been all of these little gifts that appear to have sprung out of nowhere.  And each is so incredible, so gorgeous, that I almost struggle to fit it into the rest of story.  It’s like trying to figure out where to place the diamond in the midst of a pile of shit.

Something else has happened to us too.  And I mean that it literally feels like it has “happened to us.”

I have wanted to live in an old house on one particular street of my home town for my whole, entire life.  And Shane and I actually bought a house on that street when we were first married.  The house was built in 1917 and had never really been touched.  So while it boasted original floors, moldings, plasterwork and mantels, it also had original wiring, the original boiler, the original roof, and tree branches that grew straight through the original walls of a small sun room off the living room.

We rented the movie “Money Pit” our first night there.  We slept on a mattress on the living room floor, and laughed hysterically until we realized that, unlike the people in the movie, we didn’t have a painting that we could sell for a million dollars when the bathtub fell through the floor.  In fact, we didn’t have anything at all except a little bit of faith that God would keep the bathtub in place.

So how in the world did two nearly broke individuals come into buying a house?  Well, that’s the interesting part.  We lived in an apartment across the street from this house originally, and our landlord allowed us to do anything that we wanted to place.  We painted everything and refinished the floors and made it a very cute apartment.  And, on occasion, the landlord would take money off of our rent when he liked something that we had done, but we didn’t do any of these things expecting to pay less rent.  We did them for the pure old fashioned pleasure of making the apartment a better place to live.

We managed to get the phone number of the owner of the house by word of mouth (we knew somebody that knew somebody kind of a thing), so we called him up and offered to buy his house.  He came to town from Seattle, saw the condition of the house (he hadn’t actually seen the place in a great number of years), and then came over to our apartment for a cup of tea and a talk.

“I love this apartment,” he said, as he sipped his tea and stared sadly out the window across the street at the house that he’d raised his children in, which had become a dilapidated college party hang out.

“I’ll sell the house to you for whatever you can afford,” he continued, “Contract for deed, of course, as I’m assuming that you won’t be able to get a loan until you’re both out of college.”

That’s how we got that house.  Divine intervention?  Absolutely.  And I might believe that, exclusively, if we hadn’t been able to reproduce the same basic story again.

Shane and I, as you’ve probably already guessed, discovered a secret that day.  We discovered that when you do something that you love, for the plain old-fashioned sake of loving to do it, divine intervention (along with the money needed for whatever it is) comes your way.  It’s the love that draws God.  If you’re doing it for the money, however, there are no predictable results, unless, of course, money is what you love.  In that case, simply experience with undying joy, having the money that you have.  Give money away.  Do it often.  Do it with gratitude.  And money will come your way.  And Isabel is standing here with me right now reading this.  She says that we should give love away.  And I agree, don’t you?  Do it often.  Do it with gratitude.  And love will come your way.

Where was I?  Oh, yes.  We told ourselves, within a couple of years of living in that house, that even once we were out of college and had become teachers, that we still probably wouldn’t be able to afford everything that that house needed.  But the truth is that we had grown to have other priorities by then – mainly, we wanted to spend our money on having babies instead of putting in new wiring.  So, after we’d done quite a bit of cosmetic fix-up, we sold the house to a family who promised to replace the wiring and the roof, etc., and made our first small fortune.  Then we bought a much smaller house several blocks away from the first one and started a family.

When I said good bye to that house, I had the strangest feeling that I wouldn’t be coming back home again for a very long time.  I remember the moment distinctly, standing in the upstairs hallway outside of my bedroom, hugging the old brick chimney that ran up through the attic bedrooms and out the top of the house, and knowing that I wouldn’t be at home anywhere else for a very long time.  And you never know if this kind of a thing is some sort of premonition, or if it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Either way, that was over ten years ago, and I haven’t been home since.

Shane and I have always loved fixing up old houses, so we’ve actually had quite of few of them since that first one.  And it seems like people always try to discourage us from these.  “That house is old,” Shane’s parents sometimes say to us, “a new house won’t need as much work.  Are you sure that you don’t just want a new house yet?”

But you know what’s funny?  Out of all of the houses that Shane and I have owned, the only one that we didn’t make a bunch of money on (in fact, we lost money on it) was the new, practical house in Arizona that everybody said we should get.  And we lost money on it because at the time we got the opportunity to move to back to Montana via Shane’s job, the housing market in Arizona had crashed so hard that our house was worth less than we paid for it.  But I can’t help but to believe, deep down, that it was because our hearts were never really in that house. 

We did a short sale to get out from underneath of the loan.  And this isn’t something that we ever would’ve considered doing if being with our family in Montana hadn’t become our first priority, because doing a short sale meant that, for a minimum of two years, we wouldn’t get to do the thing that we most love to do – to buy and fix up an old house.

When Shane and I moved back to Montana last December, we moved into the house that we’re living in now for two reasons.  The first reason is that I have always wanted to get my hands on this little house.  It was my mom’s house, and is an adorable little craftsman bungalow that people have destroyed bit by bit, over the years, with the addition of new, practical materials.  There are three original features left – a great front porch, maple floors, and an old bathtub.  But that’s about it really.  And the second reason we moved into this house is that it was trashed. 

My mother had been using this house as a rental for several years, and the last renters had knocked down the fence, not by accident, but by hitting it with golf clubs while drinking beer on Friday nights.  They had broken the windows, the cupboard doors, and most of the appliances.  They had put holes in all of the walls.  And somebody had literally sat inside of what is now Cale’s bedroom, and shot the walls, repeatedly, with a BB gun.  I picked literally hundreds of BBs out of the walls and off of the floors.  Poor, sweet little house.  My mother had no way of dealing with any of it either, so she was actually considering foreclosing.  Therefore, I convinced her to sell the house to us.

The arrangement that we worked out with my mom not only allowed her to keep from foreclosing, but it also gave us the opportunity to build some equity that we could use for a down payment on the next house.  Not only was it a relief for my mom, but it was a relief to me too, particularly since I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting a rental for two years wanting to sand and paint, but not being able to.  Instead, I’ve gotten to sand and paint.  And sand and paint some more.  And sand and paint some more.  And sand and paint some more.  I’ve actually become rather sick, in fact, of sanding and painting.  This house is adorable now.   

I told Shane, recently, that I really would like a big, old house again, but that I’m getting a little too old for all of the work.  And he’s been feeling the exact same way.  So when we started searching for a big, old house that didn’t need any work, a year and half earlier than originally planned (we won’t be able to get a loan from a bank again for at least that long), it seemed like an impossible endeavor.  But we didn’t really have anything to lose in trying because we had become rather accustomed to, and content with, the idea of being in this sweet little house for the rest of our lives.     

Alden, who doesn’t have a bedroom in this house (he sleeps on a mattress in the family room), has been complaining a lot about not having any privacy.  So I’ve been telling him that there are whole families in Africa that live in tents, “Be grateful that you have your very own, warm bed to sleep in my love.  It’s the only way to get a room of your own.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense Mom,” he’s whined.

“I know it doesn’t sweetie.  But it will.  You’ll see,” I’ve answered.

Somebody told me once that when the grass is greener on the other side, it’s because you’re not watering your own grass.  And Shane and I have been through a lot of heart ache in the past few years.  And when you’re going through heartache, it’s easy to forget about all of the things that you love to do.  We had moved away and had focused on careers and kids with Autism and a million other things for nearly six years, so we had almost completely forgotten that everything we touch, regarding houses anyway, turns to gold.  We didn’t realize that we had already begun to draw a miracle to us again, simply by making this house the best little house that it could be.  

When we first saw the house on the one particular street that I’ve wanted to live on for my whole, entire life, the street that our very first house was on that I said “good-bye” to, I honestly thought to myself, “There’s no way this’ll happen.  I mean, we’ve just been through a short sale, and nobody on this block would ever have to cut a deal in order to sell their home.  So why would they bother?  And besides (and here’s the only real limit) somebody like me doesn’t deserve a house like this.”

I caught myself thinking this, thankfully, and decided that it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.  So we called the lady and arranged to take a look at her house.

The house was for rent.  So we met the owner and considered the idea of renting it.  The house was even more amazing on the inside than it was on the outside, but I won’t go into the details because it would undoubtedly bore you to death.  I will tell you, however, that this lady is a genuine die-hard old house fanatic who is after my very own heart.  While she’s added every imaginable modern convenience (new wiring, new boiler, new roof, new appliances, central air, etc.), she’s also been sensitive in keeping all of the original features in place as well.

After an unbelievable tour, and after discussing the floors and the moldings and the plasterwork in the amount of detail that only genuine die-hard old house fanatics are capable of producing, we asked her if she had any loans against the place.  She didn’t of course (I’m sure that everyone on this block owns their houses outright).  So we asked her if she had ever considered selling it, and she said, “I would love to sell it.  I’m seventy five years old, and it’s a lot of work to have it cleaned and repaired in between renters.”

“Well, we’ve just been through a short sale, so it’s probably going to be another two, maybe three years until we can get a loan from a bank, but if you would consider carrying the contract, we’d be delighted to buy it,” I felt like a complete idiot as the words were leaving my mouth, because, honestly, why would she consider doing such a thing?

“I don’t know what it means to carry the contract,” she said.

“Oh… well… you have a real-estate attorney, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I could explain what carrying the contract means,” I said, “but I think that you should discuss it someone you know has your best interests in mind, because I think it’s something you should thoroughly understand before you consider such a possibility.  In the mean time, Shane and I will discuss the idea of renting the house.”

We arranged a time to talk the following week.  And Shane and I came to the conclusion, very quickly, that we didn’t want to go through the trouble of selling our house just to rent hers.  So when she called Shane the following week, he told her that.  And she responded by telling him that she’d had a CMA done, that she’d talked to her attorney, and that she wanted to sell her house to us contract for deed. 

We quickly realized that the down payment on a house in that price range would eat up all of the equity that we’ve built up in our house, and not leave us any with which to pay off the debts that we’ve accrued by fixing our house up.  Therefore, we called her back and told her that we couldn’t put ten to fifteen percent down (which is the usual amount down, if not more, on a contract for deed).

She told us that she didn’t want that much down.  She only wanted half of the estimated equity we have in our house.  So we had a CMA done on our house, just to confirm the numbers, and, after selling our house, we should have just enough to pay off my mom, cover the closing costs, pay off our debts, and make the down payment on that house.  It was almost creepy how the numbers slid together.

I still balked.  “I’m not sure how we would make the transition Shane,” I said, “I mean, it’s not like we have anything saved with which to make the payment on both places while our house is on the market.”

Shane talked to his Dad, who, frankly, has never helped Shane financially with anything ever in his whole entire life.  Okay, that’s not entirely true.  I mean, he did raise Shane for crying out loud.  But parting with money is not something Shane’s dad is particularly known for.  In fact, he’s rather well known for the exact opposite.  Shane’s dad, however, agreed to loan us the money to make the payment on our house until it sells, and the lady agreed to rent us her house at a ridiculously low price AND take half of the rent each month off of the down payment (leaving us enough to pay Shane’s dad back once it’s all over with) until our house sells and we actually make the down payment and begin the contract for deed.

My grandma, too, apparently wants in on this deal.  She said that if we need money for anything throughout the process, to just let her know.

Would you believe that I still balked?  “Maybe this lady’s house isn’t worth the amount that she’s asking for it,” I told Shane, “I’ll bet that her attorney told her jump on our offer because we’re the only suckers stupid enough to buy her house at this price.”

So Shane had his uncle do a CMA on her house, and not only is it worth what she wants for it, but this lady has had two other couples try to buy it in the past few weeks.  And do you know why she didn’t sell it to one of these other couples?  It’s because she, too, is an old house person.

“Look at the way that old plaster is buckling?” the wife said to the husband about a spot on the ceiling in one of the upstairs bedrooms, right in front of our seventy five year old genuine die-hard old-house fanatic, who spent fifteen thousand dollars having new kitchen cabinets custom built to be identical to the ones that were originally there, and who undoubtedly lets everybody know it.

“Oh, don’t worry Honey,” the husband responded to his wife, “we can rip out all of that old plaster and hang sheet rock on the ceilings.”

Where are peoples’ brains?  That’s what I want to know.

“This is Shane,” my husband answered his phone.

“You have to buy my house,” the lady said.

“Why, what happened?” he asked.

She told him what the husband had said.  “And I told him that the ceilings would look brand new if they hung sheet rock on them!” she continued, “And why in the hell would you buy a one hundred and four year old house if you want ceilings that look brand new?!!  I told them to just go and buy a new house.”

My God.  She’s really is after my heart.

“She’s right, you know?” Shane said to me later that evening.

“Right about what?” I asked.

“We do have to buy her house,” he answered.

With the exception of a bit of caulking in certain spots in the plaster, which, just in case you ever need to know such a thing, moves with the plaster in the natural settling of an old house, nothing needs to be done.  Of course, we’ll probably change some paint colors eventually.  You know us.  But she’s having the floors refinished for us as we speak, and we’re scheduled to move in next week.

I told this story (actually, we’ve involved them throughout the whole process) to our spiritual financial advisers of sorts, and they sat there with their mouths hanging open when it was all said and done.  They told us that they would be using this story for years to come.  “Using it?” I asked, “How will you be using it?”

“It’s an example of what can happen when you set a clear intention, do the footwork, and have an immense amount gratitude for what you already have.  I mean, here you’ve had this dream for your whole life of living on this one particular street (which is probably about as clear of an intention as one can possibly get), you’ve been working diligently on your finances (amongst other things), and NOW, during the time in which you’re least likely to do able to do such a thing, the gift is literally handed to you.  I have only one concern,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Why aren’t you packing yet?” he asked.

I think it’s because I don’t actually believe it yet.  And I’m probably jinxing it by writing about it.  She’ll probably call tomorrow and let us know that she’s sold the house to somebody else, but that would be okay too.  I mean, we really are comfortable right here.  But I spent some time by myself in that house the other day, studying each detail of it like it was the last time that I’d ever be allowed there again, and I stopped for a moment, at one point, to lean against the wall. 

I’m so tired.  You know?  I’m so ready for a rest.  And as I put my face against the cool, old plaster, I was quite sure that I heard the words, “Welcome home.”  And maybe it really is about setting intentions and love and gratitude and all of that.  But it sure felt to me like plain, old-fashioned destiny.