Wednesday, November 5, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
 Margaret had her own come-to-Jesus moment when she read the letter we thought meant our house in Urbana was gone (see yesterday’s devotion). Here is what she wrote.
Temporary
Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.
My part of Dave’s “story of a house” would include that it wasn’t the house I wanted to live in at all!
IT WAS TEMPORARY (in 1989) but it was all our family of five going to do ministry could afford, and it was a faith stretch at that.
When our youngest daughter married in 2009 and  moved to Austin TX, we helped Andi and her husband Aki  move. After driving the truck from Urbana we carried boxes, down two flights on a hill, then up two flights to their apartment. I wasn’t “old” sixteen years ago, but we gave out at one point and just sat down on strike.
That was one of those Austin summers with 100+ degree days for three months with no rain. I confessed to my sweet lovely daughter that although I loved her dearly, I could not live where it is hot as H—!
Then their babies Miles and Jasper were born, and covid came, and we were losing babysitting time. We wondered if we would lose all their being-little-and-cute time. But staying away from Austin as a home had been a firm pledge, and I refused to rethink it. Until.
One day sitting at the computer I guess the Holy Spirit whispered to me. “I wonder if there is an apartment close to their church?” During covid we were listening to their Sunday services. I immediately began a search. I am the procrastinator of the family, and Dave is the Jack Rabbit who gets things done without deliberation. But I found the cutest affordable apartment across the street from the church Andi and Aki had attended since they moved here, and where we went when we visited them two or three times a year.
I said out loud, and to Dave, “This is too good to be true!” In the fall of 2020 we threw caution to the wind, locked our house and drove to Austin to see the apartment. I expected to prove there was no hope, but I was wrong. We found OUR apartment, 1,000 square feet, ground floor, lovely patio overlooking the church parking lot, two bedrooms … perfect. We did the paperwork and with some divine intervention at the end of our weekend visit, we had a a lease.
Following God?? Or just insane?
By Christmas we loaded our Prius with necessities and just locked our house in Urbana with virtually no preparation. On December 26, when everything was half-price at Salvation Army’s thrift stores, we found several pieces of furniture. Andi and Aki scoured their “Buy Nothing” neighborhood website and found two beds for us, and a kitchen table, and our apartment began to feel like a good place to live. We spent that winter filling our little nest with this … and that. TEMPORARILY, of course, once again.
But what would I do with that mortgage-free house in Urbana that we had left behind?
Well, I think maybe I heard the Holy Spirit again. Could it become a retreat house for others, while we still lived there part time? Dave does counseling there. I have spent my time and energy trying to remove the chaos of 30 plus years of keeping things and procrastination. Could it be a gift to others who needed a place to rest for awhile? Very inexpensive, not for profit?
After five years of trips flying back and forth, just a few weeks ago I found an enthusiastic house cleaner who shared my vision. She could keep up the place for counseling times and retreats. With evidence that the house is settling, I looked into structural remedies. I felt hopeful and excited about the future of this “temporary” house.
Then the news came about our unpaid taxes, and we thought we had lost the house and all its contents. I felt exhausted and terrified, and angry, especially since I had begun thinking again that this could be a gift to others as a retreat center.
Now we realize we aren’t going to lose this house. My emotions have been flying back and forth. And I must go back to my consistent refrain:  TEMPORARY!
Our Urbana home was temporary, but we lived there thirty-five years. Our apartment in Austin was temporary, but we have signed a lease five years in a row.
Our lives are temporary. God gives and takes away. From dust we come, to dust we go. And this season of life, like all seasons, is also TEMPORARY! The heart-in-our-stomach letter about losing our house made this more clear than ever. God is eternal and unchanging. I stand on HIM, and I listen for the Holy Spirit. This is how I want to live my temporary life, standing on the Rock.
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
who greatly delights in his commands.
His posterity shall be mighty upon the earth;
the upright generation shall be blessed.
 (Romans 13, Psalm 112, 1 Peter 4, Luke 14)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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