Fruit Inspection

Sorry I’ve been MIA here lately. This week has been a sea of emotional ups and downs. I was debating writing about it all. People who read this blog and don’t know me could totally judge me for what is going on. But 2 things occured to me yesterday. First of all, the reason I started this blog was to journal my life for my kids to read later. The ups and downs, the good and the bad, and all the stuff that makes life hard, yet interesting, and especially to show the glory of God through all those times.

Secondly, if you don’t know me and you judge me, I don’t want you reading my blog anymore anyways. Bah-Bye, now.

So before I jump into the happenings of this week, I’m going to have to give a brief synopsis of a few things dating back to 2005. This was an awesome homebuilding year for us. It was the year Jeremy won the award for Fastest Growing Homebuilder in America. The whole U.S.of A. y’all. We were smokin’! And life was good.

At the end of ’05, we made a large purchase of land anticipating building the same number of homes (if not more) in 2006. Then, when we filed our taxes for 2005 we became aware of a new tax law requiring builders to pay taxes on purchased, undeveoped lots, as well as on any profit that was made on homes that were sold. This completely screwed us and if we would have known about the new law, we would have either waited to buy the land or only took down a portion of the lots that were available at that time.

It raised our tax amount owed to almost a half a million dollars. This really sucked but with what we were selling at the time, it was managable for us to pay the debt off in a relatively short amount of time. Until…

My brilliant, dear husband made a mistake that will haunt him for the rest of his days. We had gone into a subdivision with another builder, splitting the lots between the two. Before purchasing the lots, both builders agreed upon the house plans, standard options, and selling prices. We went to our banks and took the loans out according to plan.

Right before the construction began, the other builder wanted to change a few things. No problem. Or so we thought. The other builder ended up taking 8 months…8 MONTHS…to make up his mind about what the heck changes he wanted to make. Do y’all know how much interest we paid the banks in 8 months before we even got to break ground? Around a half million dollars. Or in other words, all the money we should have paid to the IRS.

The plan once we got the go ahead to start building in there was just to jump in head first and sell the crap out of them. And quickly, because we had taken the construction loans out for the original sales price of around $220,000. But when it was all said and done, and the new changes were implemented, the sales prices were now in the neighborhood of $320,000. That’s a one hundred thousand dollar difference! For anyone who does not know how this stuff works, here is a brief lesson: Basically, if you want to build a house, the bank gives you a construction loan for 80% of the value you give them. Which in our case is, we got the loan for 80% of $220,000 (or $176,000) and you have to come out of pocket for the rest ($44,000). But since the sales price increased AFTER we purchased the lots, we still only received the $176,000, but now had to come out of pocket an additional $100,000. And that is for each lot in the entire subdivision.

To say that my husband has been under a great deal of stress in the past 12 months would be a tremendous understatment.

Another kick in the stomach would be this housing/mortgage crisis the country is in the middle of right now. Since January we have been forced to cut our staff in half. We have had to ask some of the remaining employees to take paycuts. We have cut every expediture we possibly can. We are doing great if we sell 5 houses a month. IF.

And what about that huge tax debt from 2005 that is compounding 20% interest and penalties on a daily basis? It’s still there. And the IRS is breathing down our necks for it. They generoulsy offered to let us pay it in monthly installments. The minimum they would accept is $12,000 a month.

The only feasible way we have to pay it is to sell our house. It’s been under contract twice. It was supposed to close last month, but the buyers asked us for an extention to the end of September, but it’s not looking good. Our agent gets the feeling they are trying to back out.

All of that brings me to this week. Jeremy asked me to fast with him on Wednesday and Thursday. My first response was, “Two days??? Really??? Two???” I can barely make it through a 24 hour fast without counting down the last couple of hours until I can eat again! But I agreed. We both needed some clarity on what we are supposed to be doing about this whole ordeal.

So on Wednesday it began and I ended up so aggitated and just feeling frustrated. When I came back home Thursday morning after dropping off the kids at school, Jeremy was still at the house. He asked how I was doing and I told him I was disappointed. I really thought this would be a time of holiness and feeling close to God. And all I really felt was dispair, hopelessness, and distance from God. “I don’t feel like He’s here at all,” I said. And Jeremy replied, “Now you know how I’ve been feeling for the past year.”

I was shocked to hear that he’s felt that way and not said anything about it to me. Sure, I knew he was stressed out. But that empty feeling that settles in when you feel out of God’s hands? I didn’t know he felt that.

And then I realized God was indeed listening and answering my prayers. Several weeks ago I had taken a step back and was feeling kind of guilty for not taking on more of the burden that Jeremy’s been carrying. But I truly didn’t understand it. I KNEW about it. I had the FACTS. But I wasn’t burdened with the stress. Why? We are married. We are one. I asked God to help me to understand it. To help me share in the burden. To let me feel what he was feeling.

And on Thursday, I understood. And Jeremy and I cried together. And we asked questions. And we brainstormed. And we prayed.

Then he went to work. And I went into the office where I found a notice from the IRS that they were putting a levy on all our bank accounts. They were not giving us anymore time to sell the house. I called our CPA and the poor guy had to listen to me cry some more.

But crazy as it may seem, I knew immediately that God did this to get my attention. You see, something I struggle with is knowing that God is our provider. I constantly think of Jeremy as our provider because he is such a good business man, he brings home the money, and he has always taken care of us. I put my faith in him. I just automatically know that he can get us through these hard times. And maybe that’s why I wasn’t feeling the despair that he was feeling. I didn’t “get it” that it was competely out of his hands. There is absolutely nothing else that he can do.

So the two days of fasting did clarify to us who really is in control. It also brought Jeremy and I closer together. At the very least, if we have to end up loosing everything we have, I am confident that we will still have each other. And like my friend told me this week when I confided in her, “Jodi, God will see you guys through this. And when He does, that is just one more trophy on the wall that you can look at and know that He is who He says He is.”