“Mom, you really need to find a new home,” my daughter Tammy Sue said. “Don’t wait until your lease runs out.” After we hung up, I started on the dishes, gazing out the window at my bird feeders. Moving was going to be harder than I thought. There was a lot I liked about my double-wide mobile home.
No stairs. Room for an office. A front and back porch. A shower stall instead of a slippery bathtub. And best of all, my kitchen-window view of the trees and my beautiful bird feeders. Problem was, my home had a toxic mold issue. Everything had gone downhill since the new corporate owners took over the property, and they were raising the rent. Tammy Sue’s right, I thought, turning off the water. I have to move. But none of the places I’d looked at so far were right. One had only two windows.
Another looked out on a parking lot. A third had steep stairs. I couldn’t imagine myself being truly happy in any of them. I started drying the dishes. Suddenly I remembered a Guideposts article I’d read about a woman who wrote a prayer list specifically describing what she needed. Then she turned the list over to God. Why couldn’t that work for my new home?
I went over to my desk, pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down everything I needed in a rental: Affordable, a porch, an office for my computer desk, no stairs to climb and a shower stall. After a moment’s thought, I added optional after the shower stall. I didn’t want to be too demanding of God. In the next few weeks, I expanded my search into surrounding towns and found a surprisingly affordable house to rent. It had a front and back porch, no stairs, room for an office and a shower stall. The front yard looked out on a beautiful meadow with a pond.
This is the house I prayed for, I thought. Then I checked out the kitchen. There, right over the sink, was a window with a view of a clump of trees—the perfect place to hang my bird feeders. I’d forgotten to add that most important item to my wish list. So God added it for me.
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