Don't Go In There (it's haunted!)

     I was reminicing with a group the other day as we were discussing a chapter from a book we had all just read - Crazy Love  by Francis Chan. Two and one half years of married life, two sons nineteen months and  two weeks old, Bible College in Pensacola, Florida under our belts we had a decision to make as in "what's next God?".  With the help of my youngest sister to pack and take turns with the kids, and a generous graduation gift from Martys Dad, we headed back up to live in Indiana.
     We had gone to Bible College for heavens sake, and had our sight set on pastoring a church. As of this point we did not have a church to step into so began first attending the church we had been members of before we went away. We lived temporarily with my parents. Marty began hunting for a place to rent. We still had a cushion financially but it wouldn't last forever we knew.
     One day about two weeks back in Indiana, he came home super excited! He had found a place for us. It was behind a building we knew and could start a church plant in that building while living in the little house. (Yikes! Now this was an event of trusting God since I had not even been with him to make a decision). It was then I heard the Holy Spirit tell me "you are going to move somewhere you are going to hate". Praise God for those annointed disclaimers...
     Do not fear nor be dismayed for the Lord your God is with your wherever you shall go...
     Be strong and courageous...
     I will never leave you nor forsake you...   All there for a reason since there will be times
we are tempted to doubt His presence with us in adversity.
     And so we did. We moved to a town I had grown up with extreme predudice toward..Kind of like can anything good come out of Nazareth kind of thinking. A place sure not on my radar of places to go. Send me to Africa. Send me to China. Send me! I will go anywhere except...And so there I was in my very own local mission field in the state I had grown up in. Fancy that. No fund raising or mission board just plenty of opportunity to trust God and see Him at work in my life and the lives of others. There is alot more to be said about that leg of my journey with Him but I really wanted to get to what my title is talking about.
     We lived a total of 3 places during our time in this little community. The 3rd one was a place I had been very specific about in my desperate plea to God when we needed to move.
Please do not send me to the house on Stevenson Street! Mmm hmm..So home comes my husband with keys in hand like a hunter bagging a 10 point buck to- you already know.
I don't remember our conversation exactly but ultimately he went without me to go check it out. When he returned, he immediately sat in the chair and began searching the classifieds declaring we could not live there. There was wet furniture in there from when a tree had fallen through the roof. Old magazines. Incomplete construction..Yep all that and more.
     Strange thing happened though. Suddenly I had this supernatural FAiTH that burst up inside me that YES WE COULD do this and it was a God thing even if it was in disguise. So he wearily gave me the keys to go see for myself while he watched our now 3 kids. Our fourth was due in 3 months. I pulled up in the driveway. Overgrown grass and litter meeting me as I climbed as best I could from behind the steering wheel. And then I heard it. A creaky voice greeting me saying"don't go in there, it's haunted!" I began to rebuke demons right then and there and moved forward to enter the house.
     We did move in with help from friends and family to clear it out and clean it up. We lived 3 months rent free for doing work on the house for the landlord. And you know what we were happy there. Held Bible studies in the house. Shared Jesus with our neighbors one who stays in touch today and one a child who turned out to be the creaky voice that met me that first time in the drive playing jokes on me from inside his window. Our daughter Deborah was born in that house. Shortly after the 3 months we had to move on  and this time it was out of the little town I had come to know and prayer walk in with my four under age 7 kids and learned to know God in a better way in.