Update on our House

After several phone calls, a complete listing of our income and expenses, and talking to various people who work for our lender, it appears that we have only one option for keeping our home and that is to add about $45 to our monthly mortgage payment for the life of the loan.

While we are thankful to have any option other than foreclosure, we are less than thrilled with this plan. By the end of our loan we will have paid several thousand more dollars to our lender than we would have originally, and since we are still waiting to receive my husband's first paycheck from his new job, we don't know how our monthly cash flow is going to shake out and if we can even afford to tack on $45 more dollars every month. It sounds doable, but we just don't know. Until we have a realistic picture of our new income we are not sure how tight we are going to have to be.

Our request for forbearance, which we made the first week of June, was apparently a dead end. We learned last week that they don't even consider forbearance until a borrower is at least 4 months behind in payments (what????) and that the way they do forbearance is to require payment of the missed months at the end of the forbearance period rather than tacking them on to the end of the loan. For instance, if we had a forbearance for the 6 months between June and December, we would have to pay all 6 months worth of mortgage payments in December. Does that make sense to you?? If someone is having a hard time paying, how on earth are they going to come up with such a large amount of cash?

Our lender is very happy that we qualify for this "assistance" and quite pleased with themselves that they are "willing to work with us." I told my husband that this is not my idea of assistance, nor my definition of what it means to work with someone on a difficult problem. "Working with" implies to me a give and take, back and forth, discussing what each party is willing to sacrifice. Of course, big corporations don't work that way. They are probably thrilled that instead of losing money through foreclosure of our home, they are going to end up making MORE off us! (sorry, my cynic is showing)

So. We ARE thankful that foreclosure can be avoided. But it's a struggle right now to have the right attitude toward our lender. And after coming through 9 months of unemployment, this month has actually been the hardest of all, financially! No paycheck til the end of the month, but no income from unemployment since my husband is working. God has been very gracious and has seen us through (He always does). First paycheck is only 2 days away! Who-hoo!!! But my frame of reference for hearing this news about our mortgage was not the best.

Lord God, you are holy and worthy and unchanging and completely unaffected by the economy. Thank you for being who You are. Please forgive me for my bad attitudes, my lack of trust, and my weakness to worry. Thank you so much for helping us this month, meeting each of our needs. Thank you that we can stay in our home. Please help us as we adjust to a steady income again. Help us to be prudent and wise and careful and generous. Help us to afford this extra monthly expense. Help me to have the right attitude toward our lender, and help me to be the peaceful and spirit filled wife that my husband needs me to be. May You be glorified in this, Father. I love you, Amen.