Okay. I admit it. I set my heart and it was broken. I held the tears at bay, but they still were brewing beneath the surface as I tried to convey that it really was alright.

See, we found a house the other day. Right after I asked for prayers, we found a house. Not just a house, the house. It was a three bedroom house, with a front porch, hardwood floors, two full baths, a huge kitchen, dining room, and living room. It was below, way below our budgeted monthly rent. It was around the corner from school. And it had a porch swing. I was in love. At first sight.

One hitch: the owners only wanted three girls living there, but she would talk to her husband because she liked us so much. Husband said no. We were crestfallen.

A friend and I talked about my propensity toward disappointment the other night. The way I set my heart so intensely on things, circumstances, situations, and dreams, and the way I am utterly crushed when they don't turn out as I expected. I said it's not so much that things don't turn out the way I want them, as much as it is that most of the time I think I've really heard the Lord---and the disappointment is proof that I didn't. It's more my faith that gets shattered and not my dreams. And so my instinct is to no longer hope or to just get used to disappointment.

This morning, though, I'm thinking about hope and plans and futures in the Lord, and I'm going to confess, it's hard. It's hard to get ahold of the Lord without getting ahold of the plans, visioning without envisioning. It's hard to just trust that He is who He says He is, even if we didn't get the house, even if my car keeps breaking down, even if my plans get thwarted, and my heart gets broken. He is still faithful and my only duty is to see his faithfulness more clearly, not define His faithfulness by a tally marked list of Dids and Didn't Dos.

EDIT: No sooner had I pushed publish post and jumped in the shower than my roommate poked her head in the bathroom door. "Lor?" she whispered, "We got the house." And standing there, with water streaming down my face, I added some tears to the mix. The thankful kind. The kind that remind me that with every hurdle in my life there is a spiritual lesson that must be learned before the hurdle can be crossed and blessing brought through.

That perfect house, the one with the hardwood floors and a porch swing. Three bedrooms and well below our affordable budget. That house will be our home in two weeks. Not because we deserve it, but because we decided to make a disappointment into a lesson and He blessed our socks off.

But we'll put 'em back on---those floors are crying out for a good run and slide!