Wonderful, wonderful news!

After 15 months and 5 attempts, pages and pages of documents faxed multiple times, and too many hours to count on the phone........

Our mortgage modification is COMPLETE!!!!!

Back payments from the months that we were behind in our mortgage (during the 9 month unemployment a year and a half ago) are no longer hanging over our head, and therefore foreclosure is no longer looming. We are so very grateful.

We came even closer to foreclosure recently than we did during the unemployment itself. The first week in December we received a notice on our door that our home was going to be sold at public auction during the first week in January. Of course, this was published in the paper, as all foreclosure notifications are, so we had realtors contacting us NON STOP trying to get us to short sale our home, unfamiliar cars driving slowly past our house (looking to see if it was worth bidding on), letters from bankruptcy attorneys. It was endless. And disconcerting.

We were in constant contact with our lender and knew that the public auction probably was not really going to happen, so we didn't panic too much, but it would have happened if our modification had not been moving forward. Just before Christmas we learned that the modification was "complete" and our home was taken off public auction. The best Christmas present ever!! But this week we received our copy of the paperwork in the mail making it 100%, certifiably official.

It is very humbling to come close to losing your home. I have such sympathy for those who do. I learned that it really can happen to anyone, despite their best efforts and planning. Financial gurus tell us to have 6 months worth of living expenses saved, but what if 6 months is not enough? What if unexpected medical bills consume all your savings? What if there is simply no work to be found, even though you are a hard worker? I learned that God's grace truly covers all the "what ifs". Every. Single. One. It doesn't exempt us from the hardship, but God gives us hope through the trial.

After doing the happy dance when I saw the paperwork, I had a moment of worry. Now that we are temporarily unemployed again, what if we get behind again? Would God allow us to work through a successful modification only to have us lose the house after all? I don't know what the future holds, but I DO know that God's grace will cover this "what if" too. And I decided not to let worry come to the party! I happy danced away!