kittyfranklin

I wanted to update you all on everything that has happened since. It is very awe inspiring and amazing and miraculous and confirming.

We moved to Florida (from Southern California) in June 2015 because that was our plan, and we never got any specific instruction on where else to go.

I personally asked God to give us favor in this step, and he definitely did. 

But Florida is hot. The summers are long. So at the end of summer 2017 we started looking for a place in the north to maybe get an affordable second home to go to in the summers. At first, I was thinking Maine. Some obstacles got in our way and the housing prices were beginning to go up. So then we were just looking anywhere in the north that had less expensive houses for sale. 

One day my husband was on a real estate website with a set price range, zoomed out on the whole northeast area of the United States. I walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder. There was a cluster of red dots on the map in a particular area, so I told him to zoom in there. It was Niagara Falls, NY. And we were both like, "hmm, never would have thought of that." We didn't even know where Niagara Falls was before this. So we began looking at houses there. 

The problem was that my husband and I are both in 12 step recovery programs. Where we were looking in Maine, we both have meetings for our issues. But in Niagara Falls/Buffalo, there was no meeting for me. But I figured, I could start one.

At some point along the way, we remembered the dream about the compass, and how the compass always points north. But that didn't mean we knew that Niagara Falls was the place we should go. But we kept looking at houses in Niagara Falls.

Related to all of this, in April of 2017, my wrist started acting up, hurting pretty bad. It started to get really bad around June 2017, but, being the sort of person who doesn't take care of myself very well, I didn't decide to do anything about it until I was completely incapable of using my left arm and hand for anything, which was in September 2017. I made an appointment with a wrist and hand doctor. I figured, I might as well go to the expert, and based on reviews, he seemed to be the best. I had to wait two weeks for my appointment. 

Meanwhile Hurricane Irma came through Florida and most people lost their power. Some for a few days. I thought for sure my appointment would have to be moved. But I called and they said, nope, you're still on for today. So my husband and I drove over there.

It was a part of town that we very rarely go to. On the way, my car broke down, so we had to stop in a shopping center. My husband said the radiator hose is broken and we will need a tow truck. So I called AAA and they said someone would be there in about 45 minutes, and the tow truck driver (or the company) would call or text me when the driver was 10 minutes away. 

I then called the doctor and told them I don't think I'll be able to make it. They said that's OK, just call us later to see if we can squeeze you in.

We then wandered around the shopping center and decided to go into this very large antique store, where everyone had their own "cubicle" of stuff to sell. It was very very large. My husband and I had gone in there maybe one other time, and we like looking at antiques, so we figured this would be a good way to pass the time.

We walked through almost the whole store, and I kept checking my phone and there was nothing from the tow truck. I was getting tired of looking at stuff, but I have this thing where I can't just tell my husband what I want because he will just give it to me, even if he wants the opposite. So I didn't say anything, and thought to myself, "maybe we'll just go down one more aisle and then we should probably go check on the tow truck."

So we went down one more aisle and we came across these postcards. All the post cards were of old houses, maybe from the 1800s. The postcards were old and black and white. I was looking through a stack and my husband was looking through a stack. Then my husband came across a vibrantly colored post card of Niagara Falls. He showed me and said "It's a sign." And I was like, "yeah, that's cool." And I did think it was cool, but I wasn't overthinking it. I said we need to go check on the tow truck because it had definitely been more than 45 minutes. My husband said we should buy the postcard. And I was like, "no we have enough stuff." So we left to go check on the tow truck. It had arrived at our car down the parking lot, so we hurried over there. I asked the town truck driver how long he had been there and he checked his phone and said 18 minutes. That's when he notified his company that he had arrived. I told him that AAA told me they would send me a text or something when they were 10 minutes out, but I never got anything. 

Well, we got towed home and I called the doctor again, but I wouldn't be able to make it before they closed, but they said they could get me in tomorrow! And my husband was able to fix the radiator hose in just an hour! So I was still able to go to my 12 step meeting that night (which is very important to me). My husband also told me that the night before, he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep. He was stressed about whether or not we should be going to Niagara Falls, so he asked God for a sign. Well, this made me wake up! He asked God for a sign and the very next day, all this happens and we come across a random postcard of Niagara Falls!

The next day, I went to the doctor and got a corticosteroid injection in my wrist because it was most likely just tendonitis. I think it would have been pretty pricey since he's a specialist, but we said we were self pay because we're part of a health ministry, so the doctor said that the entire office visit and shot was on the house! My wrist felt all better in a week. It did start hurting again a bit a month later, but now that I knew it was tendonitis, I figured out it was because of my work on the keyboard, and I looked up youtube videos and found one that gave me a solution to my problem. I just have to massage and stretch the muscles in the top of my forearm whenever I start to feel any pain in my wrist. So now I no longer have any problems with my wrist.

Two weeks later, I realized that I really do feel we should buy the postcard. So we went back to the antique store and looked through the postcards again, and my husband found it again! And since it was only a dollar, and we didn't have cash, I felt bad only purchasing that (being small business owners, we understand that there are fees anytime someone buys something with a credit card, so they wouldn't make any money at all on a dollar purchase with a credit card). So I said, ""Let's try to find something I can make into a Christmas ornament," because each year we buy one new Christmas ornament to put on the tree. Kind of a tradition. So again, we walked around the entire antique store and I was starting to lose hope when suddenly we came across these 5 little lighthouses which were all ornaments. Underneath each one was written where the lighthouse was located in the real world. Well, underneath one of them it said Buffalo, NY! Which is the main big city by Niagara falls! I was like, "WHAT???" What are the chances of that? With all the lighthouses in the world, one of these five is the lighthouse in Buffalo! Buffalo is the place where I would start my 12 step meeting for the area because the population is higher. So we bought the Buffalo lighthouse ornament along with the Niagara Falls postcard.

Back to the house search. When we found a house we liked, we got a realtor and asked her to put an offer on it, and it was accepted, so we flew up to do the inspection in January 2018. The house is a major fixer upper, which is mostly irrelevant to the story, but it was all in working order, until they turned on the heat and realized that the pipes had burst because the seller didn't winterize the house. So it went from an accepted offer of $44,000 (and we were going to get a loan) to becoming a cash sale. They offered $30,000. We countered at $10,000 (because that's all we had). They countered at $20,000 cash. My husband and I did some research on our finances, and it was possible for us to have the money by the time we closed on the house, since half of it would be a business expense, and we could tell that we should be able to save that amount by then if things kept going the way they were going (but in business you never really know). So it was still a faith move because we didn't currently have the money. So we accepted the counter offer of $20K cash.

There were lots of issues on the closing of the house (on the seller's end). So we weren't sure if it was going to work out. Obstacle after obstacle kept getting in our way, it seemed. But we plunged ahead, unsure of anything. And for some reason we still kept questioning if we were supposed to move there, but we had to keep remembering all the happened to make us find that postcard. And then the lighthouse ornament on top of it.

And then I remembered the dream again, and how a compass always points north. I got an idea. I looked on Google Maps, and Niagara Falls is almost exactly a perfect straight line north from our house in Palm Bay, FL. It is crazy! Our houses are only off by 1.6 degrees of latitude! So that was even more confirmation. Really weird too! Our house in Palm Bay is -80.6339367. Our house in Niagara Falls is -79.0434539.

When our realtor/attorneys finally gave us a closing date, and we were finally going to move, we went to get the moving truck where I had made a reservation and they told us that they no longer have moving trucks. WHAT??? So that was another obstacle that made us unsure if this was really going to happen. But they told us to check the other store. So we went home and called them and they said they had our truck there. So we went there (it was much farther, actually really close to where we found the postcard) in the middle of rush hour, and I was getting stressed because we were running out of time, had too much to do and had to load up the truck. We got there and their credit card machine wasn't working. They also rent out cars, and no one that entire day was able to rent a car from them. We were there for about 45 minutes to an hour while they were still trying to fix it. I was losing hope and we were both losing our patience. Then, on a fluke, the credit card finally went through, and I cried! We were the only ones to be able to rent something that day! 

We loaded up the truck and the next day went on our merry way. We visited my husband's brother and his family in North Carolina on the way up. The day we were leaving North Carolina, we got a call from our attorney saying that closing is not going to happen and the seller's attorney doesn't want to sell us the house. They couldn't get the seller out of the house because he was old and had dementia and didn't want to leave and the seller didn't have a place to go yet. The seller's attorney didn't want to deal with it. We told them, we were already half way there, and we already got tenants into our house in Florida, so we couldn't even go back to our house in Florida if we wanted to. I was adamant about it at this point and wanted to make sure we were firm and we were not backing out of this purchase. That they needed to do what it takes. 

Well, we ended up having to get a storage unit and live in a hotel for 3 weeks in the Buffalo area until they were able to move the seller to a new place. 

It all worked out in the end, but what a whirlwind! It was very exciting and suspenseful, and also very frustrating time.

I started my 12 step meeting and I know I have helped many people. It is tough when the meeting is small, or sometimes no one else comes. New people have come and gone. I worked with many of them, and I know even just one conversation with someone can change their life. So I have faith that whatever has happened is God's will. 

Now it is November 2019. We stayed in Niagara Falls from May 2018 until now because we wanted to experience one real winter. Now we've been trying to leave New York for the last few weeks to go back down to Florida, but my husband's business gets things from China, and that can be unreliable. I've been frustrated not knowing when we're going to leave. I don't do well with uncertainty, or the feeling of uncertainty (since everything's always uncertain). But the crazy thing is that a guy who is part of my 12 step program who is from Pennsylvania just moved here and took over the meeting. I don't know what would happen if I left before he got here. He may not have started a meeting if no one else was here. I was able to meet with him last week and we had our first meeting this week. There is a new person who has been coming, but it would be too much for her to step up to keep the meeting alive. Now that he is here, the two of them can do it together. So it all works out perfectly always! I try to keep having faith when I don't know what's going to happen because life is always this way. 

My husband got his shipment this past Wednesday and we are leaving Niagara Falls tomorrow to head back down to Florida for the winter and will be back in Niagara Falls in May 2020. I am going to be calling in to my 12 step meeting in Buffalo during the winter and be put on speaker phone to help keep things going, and because it's always nice to have one more person's experience ,strength and hope.

I hope others can gain from this story. It's all about faith and trust in the Lord!

Yay! Thank you! :) We are staying open to whatever else God speaks to either of us.

My husband had another dream. This time, Jesus explained that the compass always points north (my husband already knows how to use a compass though, and that part of the dream might have happened simply because we were talking about how a compass is used because my friend was asking me if either of us knows how to use a compass, and we do). My husband said that Jesus did not mean we are to go north, just that that is how a compass is used. And He said, "Where you are going, there are people who will need your help."

Any thoughts? This seems like more confirmation that we are supposed to be going somewhere.

Okay thank you! :) We will wait patiently :)

How will we know what it is if it is concealed? Or is the direction going to be made known, and the details not made known, so faith will be needed because of that? Either way, we are keeping our hearts and minds open to what He has to reveal to us. :)

Thanks dreamster! :)

Wow, thank you so much for your response, dreamster! That is definitely very helpful. We will pray for more guidance and signs :)

Also, any other thoughts from anyone is still welcome :)

Hey everyone,

My husband had a dream that we really want to understand because we have been asking God for answers for awhile now, so I found this forum and I am so glad!!!

Here is the link to my husband's dream. Thoughts are highly welcome! :)

/t21352-jesus-giving-a-compass

My husband had this dream this morning. After he woke up, he was praying for a bit, then fell back asleep and had this dream:

Jesus came up to him and said, "I have a gift for you." In His hand was something flat wrapped in cloth. Jesus put it on the table in front of Him and unwrapped the cloth and there was a compass. Then he woke up.

To give you some context, my husband and I have been planning on moving out-of-state across the country, but we are unclear as to whether or not this is the right move for us. There are logical reasons for us to move, and we do want to move, but there has been no big voice from the sky saying "yes" or "no". We don't know if God is particular about whether or not we move, or if he is fine with whatever we decide is right for us in this circumstance.

I will ask my husband more questions when he gets home, such as what he was feeling when he was having the dream, and what he was praying about before he had the dream.

Update: My husband said that the feeling he had in his dream was "surprised". He thought it was cool that Jesus was giving him a gift. And before my husband fell asleep, he was just praying generally, spending time with God, nothing specific.

Here are some things I jotted down for my own info:
Moral Compass
The Holy Spirit is our Compass
The Bible is our Compass
Going around in circles until Jesus gave us a Compass
Jesus is our guide and compass
We must put Jesus first as our Compass, not our own understanding.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:5-6
We have Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit. We need not be afraid. We have our compass.