Well it's been well over a year since my last post, mainly due to the fact that we have now moved back to the UK after nearly ten years in Australia. Sorry, pardon, what?
In my last blog I spoke in depth about the grief journey I had been on since my Mum's passing in October 2019, and to be honest none of what I was feeling was shifting and I seemed to be living in this strange vortex and every time I thought things were settling, grief would rock up in the most unwelcome of situations and I'd feel completely out of control. In fact, it was getting to the point that I felt that maybe, just maybe, the only way I was going to move on was if I were to be with my family in the UK again. But let me rewind a bit to fill in the gaps and bring context to this roller coaster of a story.
In August 2021, we moved into the the most beautiful of houses. This was following the incredible sale of our previous house where after only spending about $23k on renervations the value had gone up by a mind-blowing $312k in under two years! We were then able to put in an offer for a place that we could only dream of a few months before and miraculously we got it. It was a gorgeous single-level house in a lovely area and it felt like paradise.
Perhaps the only thing playing on our minds was the fact that it was pretty much at the top of our budget. But hey, I had a new job I was going into and things seemed like they were going perfectly, and we even had money set aside to plan a long awaited trip back to the UK in August 2022.
The week before my new job was about to start, the area we lived in went into COVID lockdown. I was not able to be in the office and get to know all my new colleagues or figure out my new role as facilities manager, but rather I was handed a laptop, a work phone and told to "work from home". 'Work home on what, exactly?' I thought. So for the first week I was at home and immediately being sent so many emails, asking me to produce documents, raise work orders and investigate maintenance issues and I had no idea how the company worked. It was horrible.
I managed to push through and got to a point where I felt comfortable and finally we were allowed back in the office and I could finally meet my colleagues, in person. As soon as I met the person who I was to sit next to every day, I felt this horrible unease and weirdly instantly started clashing with this person.
Now, I am a very easy-going person who loves working with people and I have had difficult working relationships in the past but I have been able to deal with them because I have been able to work out what the person likes and start talking about that as a way in to break the ice. But this? This was another ballgame. My wife was very quick to say "you need to get out of there." But in typical fashion I decided to stay and try and make it work and try and build a good working relationship. However, after every effort to make this work, it just didn't happen and I was very down, and also exhausted. So what next?
Well, about a month from when I did decide to quit, a friend of mine was holding a prohetic conference and I wanted to go along, mainly just to catch up with him and was not expecting much to happen (this is usually when a lot happens). About three days before I left for the conference God spoke very clearly about taking four months off work. Instantly I wrestled with this because, a) how on earth would we manage financially, and b) how on earth would we manage financially?! Yes, I asked this question, twice. But, I put it to the back of my mind and went to the conference. On the way home, my other friend who was in the car with me, and very much under the power of the Holy Spirit, said; "I think God wants you to take four months off work!" BOOM! Well, when God wants to confirm it, He confirms it.
When I mentioned this to my wife, being the extremely Spirit-filled woman she is, she felt it was also the right thing to do and as we had two cars, we decided to sell one of them and it was so easy to sell on. The amount we received easily paid for the four months and so the scene was set for us to go on a real faith journey. We also felt, 'maybe this is the best time to go back to the UK for a visit', so with money from the previous house sale we booked flights - three weeks for my wife and kids (young adults) and me for two weeks as I had also managed to secure a job for the end of the four months. It was all working out perfectly - except for one thing; the interest rates for mortgages were going up, very quickly!
Normally this would not have worried me, but the new job I had accepted was not as well paid as the previous one (not by much but enough to notice), and our mortgage costs were now starting to put a strain on our income. We still felt to trust God, carry on with the four months off and also the trip to the UK. Yeah, easier said than done. By the time our trip came up, there had been two more rate rises and at least four more were being predicted by the Bank of Australia. We were now at breakeven and when I spoke to our lender for the mortgage they said, "house prices are coming down and we cannot re-mortgage or change you to interest only, you'll just have to make up the difference!" Wow, OK. Not only that, but my wife was starting to get to the point of leaving her role and pursue something else. We were right in the thick of it.
Finally the trip to the UK came up and my family left for London, with me arriving a week later. This had been our first trip back on over two years. When we had previously visited the UK from Australia, it always felt like just a visit and we were always excited to return to Australia, but this felt very different and for a number of reasons.
The first of these was that this was the first time I had been in the UK since my Mum had passed away and I just did not know how I would be able to process this. When I visited my Dad, he told me to sit down and pointed at my Mum's old armchair that I had always seen her sitting in - this was going to be a defining moment for me. As I sat down, I felt such a sense of peace and also a release of pain as those thoughts about what it will be like, disappeared in an instant. It was amazing. It felt like I had finally scaled a large mountain and the grief was starting to leave.
Another reason it felt different was because it just felt so comfortable, almost like we were back and bonding once again with family and friends. It was quite something and I wasn't sure how we'd be when it came to leaving to go back to Australia. I even had the thought, 'is God wanting us to move back?' I didn't say anthing, though, as God has a habit of speaking to my wife and I about the same things at the same time.
When the time did come for us to leave, it was SO hard. There was a lot of crying, a lot of disappointment, a lot of strange feelings of being home again. It was so difficult. If it wasn't for a few days stop over in LA on the way to Australia, I think we'd have landed back in a bit of a state. But thankfully, when we got back we were fine but obviously had a lot to think about. For me, I was starting my new job on Monday so, yeah, I didn't have long at all to dwell on what was going to happen next.
By the time the new year (2023) came, we were going backwards financially. Our mortgage was now over $1000 a month more than it was when we bought the house, I was in ANOTHER new job and struggling and my wife was working for a new company but not really settling like she thought she would be. Adding to this, our son was starting to say how he just wanted to study music back in the UK and wanted to move back and our daughter was having a really hard time adjusting back into life in Australia. AND, God had spoken to me about preparing to move again. For some reason, I didn't think He meant moving back to the UK but it didn't take too long before this crazy idea grew and grew and it was then the only thing I could think about. I prayed that my wife would feel the same way and also prayed that if it was God's will, He would have to perform the miracle of miracles to ensure our house sold for more than we had bought it for, especially in a declining property market.
One Friday in the middle of February 2023, my wife came home from work and said, "I think we need to move back to England! But I just want some time to pray about it and see what God says." Not wanting to let on that I'd been feeling like this for a while, I said that I would wait for her to tell me if it was something we needed to consider. For my wife, she processes God's voice in such a lovely way and asks Him to show her a sign that she would understand, personally. Well the sign came and it was a huge one! Literally.
For context, a few years prior to this we had a couple of bad wobbles about being in Australia and my wife was praying for God to speak to her about this. She was driving along a lane and saw a large metal shed which someone had graphitied on in large letters "BABY, DON'T GIVE UP!" She had never seen it before and felt God's reassurrance that He was with her in her doubting. So, now we were having questions about staying in Australia, my wife decided to drive along this lane again on the way to work (which was actually well out of her way) to get that reassurance that we should stay and see this out. But to her astonishment, this time the sign read, "BABY, GIVE UP!" The 'DON'T' had fallen in and left a gap! Laughing and crying at the same time, my wife knew it was time to sell up and move back to England. When she told me about this and showed me the photo, it was a very dramatic and powerful. We knew it was finally time.
So this is where it gets really good. When the estate agent came to value our house, my wife and I already had a number in our heads of what we wanted from the sale and this was $950,000. We felt God had given us this number but looking around the area we lived in, for the same size house the nearest home values were more like $800,000. After spending a while looking around our house, the agent said, "you have a lovely home, I think we should market it at $890 - $920K. Very quickly my wife said, "We want to put it on for $950k. " The agent looked in astonishment and said, "I've been an agent in this area for 20 years and I know the property market. The market is in decline and you will not get near that number." To which my wife replied, "Well, you don't know who we know. We want to put it on for $950k." So, reluctantly, the agent agreed and we ordered the photographer to come and take photos. We were starting the process...
Two weeks later, the agent called to say a lady who was a cash buyer wanted to view the house when the photographer was there as she wanted to 'get in there quickly before the house went on the market'. By 3pm that same Monday (03/04/23) an offer had come in from her for $930k. We couldn't believe it, but although we knew we had a buyer, weirdly we still felt to stick to the asking price of $950k, risking this sale in the process. But, to ours and the agents shock, 24 hours later we sold our house for... $950,000! She had upped her offer because she didn't want to lose the house! The agent was on the phone to me saying, "WHO DO YOU KNOW? THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN!" I simply replied that we are Christians and God is our provider and told us to sell the house for this amount. He said that he was in amazement but said, until the contracts are exchanged nothing is set in stone and we could still stand to lose money on the sale if the survey brought anything up.
On May 12th, 2023, we settled on our house sale for $950,000 and even the agent came to take photos of the SOLD sign going up over our For Sale sign. Again he shook our hands and said "I cannot believe this. You two have caused me a lot of grief in the local housing market as all the other agents are asking how on earth you guys have sold for a price nearly $150k over the market average. They think we have made up the numbers!" We just laughed and said, "We told you we know someone!"
So for now, that is what I wanted to share. We are of course now back in the UK and within our first year God has done another impossible miracle with housing for us, but I will share more on this soon. For now, I just want to say that God is always faithful to His word. We are always amazed each time He chooses to bless us and we know we are not alone in this. God does this for millions of people every single day. He is good all the time.
I hope this has encourged you all.
God bless,
Adam
