Yea, God!

In 1984, while I was working on Capitol Hill, Annie and I had an opportunity to buy a new townhouse. We’d never owned a home before, and it was a pretty heady experience for us.

It was in a new single-family home development and, in addition to all the new houses, the county required the builder to include thirteen low-income townhouses for people just getting started.

Back then, “low-income” was a step up for me. I made so little as a congressional press secretary that I had to ask the Congressman for a $5,000 raise just to qualify as poor.

Anyway, in the end, we got the townhouse … but not at all the way we expected.

When we were told that the townhouse would soon be ready, we gave notice at our apartment. So far, so good.

But the builder contacted us again and said he had no occupancy permits and we couldn’t move in. When we said we had already given notice, he said okay, we could move in—but we’d have to get a temporary occupancy permit and pay $50 a day. That was $1,500 a month, which would be $4,640 a month in today's economy.

So we took our case to the county, and the county told the builder that not only could we move in but also that he had to keep making the payments until we closed on the house … which ended up taking about six months!

So, instead of becoming paupers, we had no mortgage payments for nearly half a year. And with the money we saved, we were able to buy a washer and dryer and a chest freezer for Annie … and a 12-string guitar for me.

And all the way through, the builder kept trying to stick it to us. And every time he did, he grabbed the short stick … which provided us with a new garbage disposal, dishwasher and privacy fence as well.

"And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for those who are called according to his purpose."

~ Romans 8:28, ESV