Happy Anniversary, Homeowner!

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand,that we should walk in them.  ~ Ephesians 2:8-10

This past week marked the one year anniversary of me closing on my co-op apartment in Manhattan. Celebrating hadn’t crossed my mind until Friday when one of my neighbors suggested I should have friends and family over to mark the occasion. In the absence of both, I decided I will host a tea party with some of my neighbors – all of whom are also celebrating their first anniversary at some point this year too.

I closed on my new apartment home at the end of September 2013 and moved in a few days later on October 2. Both 2012 and 2013 were pressure cooker years for me. So much seemed to have gone wrong for me in 2012 that by the time I began to recognize increase and new direction, I could only respond to it all as additional challenges to get through even while understanding I was in the midst of blessings manifesting in my life. Because of this attitude I have not yet paused to tell the world what God has done for me. That failure on my part has been gnawing at me for the last few days. When it first came to me on Thursday, I decided I would post a status update on Facebook to share the milestone (a year later) with that network. Last night, I went to bed thinking of what I would say, how would I acknowledge the goodness and provision of God in my life? This morning I woke up before 7:00am and began typing on my phone. By the fourth paragraph I realized this was more than a status update.

Why I was trying to trivialize God, I have no idea. I can only say that I hid this blessing (shied away from sharing it) because friends and family didn’t help me with it and I didn’t want them to benefit from the knowledge of it. I didn’t want to share my joy with everyone any more.

Wow. And shame on me.

This morning’s sermon was on Luke 19:12-27, The Parable of the Ten Minas. Just in case I thought I was imagining God’s instruction and insistence that I share, the sermon this morning drove home His point in no uncertain terms. I’m not producing. I’m living within a blessing and I am still empty. I have become a disgraceful servant by not glorifying my King.

I know that everything I receive is not for my benefit, yes, I know that. Everything, absolutely everything I go through and receive is for God’s glory. My responsibility is to give Him praise and proclaim to the world all that He has done for me (Luke 8:39, Luke 17:11-19, Mark 5:19). Only… He is so GREAT that my proclamations may sound like bragging to the world. So… perhaps I do worry what people think of me. I don’t want anyone to think that I am doing so well that I deserve their jealousy – which is the most common gift I receive from family and friends: jealousy, hatred, resentment, disrespect, and disregard. Until they want something from me, of course.

I see my error. I should not have allowed anticipation of people’s reaction to my blessing to keep me from telling all that God has done for me.

This is the slippery slope: I didn’t hide with the intention of hiding. Honestly, I have decorated my home with the intention of hosting the people He sends to me. I bought a dining table that can seat eight people and have extra seating around the apartment because I truly anticipated hosting Bible studies and casual fellowships. I’ve been sitting in my new home resting at first (after two years of back to back adrenaline rushes), then I was waiting. Slowly the waiting turned to withdrawal. Over the course of this year, I’ve become more and more remote. Not because I wanted to. Keeping to myself is now easier than reaching out to people. I used to reach out and invite people into my life all the time. Rejection has taught me to be so selective that I issue no invitations at all anymore. (Invitation has also been on my mind this week and I have a post in the queue for you.)

Here’s the revelation as I write: I have been waiting for God to send me the people I am to focus on, but He had already sent me to be the light of His Word and I’ve been hiding myself within His bounty. He called me and sent me into the world and there are people waiting for my invitation. I am to get up and go, not sit and wait.

Amen! My Heavenly Father is being heard today!

The triumphant story…

I’ve had poor credit for as long as I can remember. Getting a whole bunch of retail credit cards at age 19 did me no good. I’ve never filed for bankruptcy, but I have thought about it many times. In September 2005, I moved to New York City with no money, no job and no family or friends. I struggled every day – so much so that I have to actively remind myself now that I am no longer in that struggle. I did random work for six months until I landed a temporary administrative assistant role at a top bank. That temp role led to a full-time role at a mid-size bank. A year later I was temping at another big bank, having left the full-time gig due to personality conflicts with my manager (all this is covered in my book, My God and Me). I’ve been at my current company ever since; July marked seven years. Throughout most of this time, for six and a half years I lived in a studio apartment in Harlem. All my worldly possessions were in that apartment and in a corner of the basement below me. I tried to upgrade from that apartment for years, but my credit and income were usually the problems. I was finally able to move out of my studio to a one-bedroom apartment in November 2012. Three months later I got the call to purchase my new home.

What that transition re-enforced for me was to move when God tells me to move. My landlord would have been happy for me to stay in that studio forever or until I got married. He never had to worry about his rent money – I would go without food before not paying him and he knew it. He welcomed me to his dinner table for all those years to keep me comfortable with paying first. I am convinced that had I not moved when I was urged to move, I would not have gotten my new home last year. The move was preparation. It was a stretch and it was scary. The move-in costs to my new one-bedroom rental amounted to a down payment for a home in other parts of the country, but more importantly the monthly rent payment was $500 more than I had been paying in my studio.

Can you guess how much more than my studio my mortgage and maintenance fees are?

I remember 2013 for the extreme stress of getting my finances in order so I could purchase my Manhattan apartment. Only a few of my co-workers know the details of the ordeal – I mean, blessing 🙂 – because they watched me go through the whole roller coaster ride. They call me lucky, but I know it’s God’s provision. And I’ve been remiss in not sharing what He has done for me.

New York City has affordable housing lotteries (both rentals and ownership) for low and middle incomes. The apartment lotteries provide housing units in the five boroughs of New York City at a discount of market rate. The price you pay depends on your income bracket. I’m not sure if other cities have the same or similar program, but I encourage you to look if you’re interested in home ownership. I had been applying to lottery apartments for about five years and had been called back for at least four before I got the call for this one in early February 2013.

Mine was something like the 1164th application reviewed out of 5000 for a new co-op apartment in a 123-unit development. In my mind it was a miracle that they had even gotten to me. I viewed five apartments during my interview and picked one on the 9th floor – it had an extra window in the bedroom and a view of a corner of Central Park from the living room… not to mention a great evening view of the City.

I had ten days to sign the purchase agreement and hand over my 10% down payment. This is where the battle began and I got my head into strategy like never before. End goal: owning an apartment in this building. I love it! It was everything I had been praying for in my next home in the City – modern, space, location, convenient to work. After all the apartment rentals I had walked through in Manhattan, this was GOLD.

For this development, financing terms were better if I chose one of their two preferred banks (both sponsors of the project) and dealt with only one banker at each. One of the banks was the bank I work at. That banker wanted nothing to do with me. He told me point-blank he was not going to put in a mortgage application because I was too high of a risk and I should contact him in a year to see if I was less of a risk.

The other guy, Dave at Chase Bank, saw my high risk and said, “I can work with this. Just do what I tell you to do and you’ll get your apartment.” Dave worked with me from late February until September 2013. Due to his instruction, my credit score improved by at least 80 points during that time. I can’t thank him enough, even though I know he was divinely positioned to help me. He obeyed and that meant the world to me.

I couldn’t get a mortgage loan in time to get the 9th floor apartment with the extra window and view. I cried in frustration because I was trying so hard to deliver everything everyone was asking for. I thought I had lost the opportunity to claim my slice of Manhattan.

Eleanor, my other guide in this process, worked for the building sales manager. She had interviewed me because the person I was scheduled to interview with had an emergency that day. (God is visible when He moves, you just have to know what to look for!) Eleanor was also the one to tell me I lost the apartment to someone who was ready. Then she told me this, “What is for you is for you. Don’t worry about what doesn’t work out, what God has for you is much better. Just hang in there and be ready when you’re called again.”

She called again at the end of May – a one-bedroom model unit was available; it had been the sales office. Did I want it? “Eleanor, I’m on my way right now!” I wasted no time in signing the preliminary documents. They had my down payment within the next couple of days and Dave was instructed to process my mortgage application ASAP!

Unfortunately, Dave was not able to get my mortgage approved. After about six weeks of processing and back and forth, it was declined. Dave, the dear, determined man that he is, insisted on tweaking my application and submitting again. By this point, I was more than determined that this apartment was meant for me and it was for me to follow-through. Even as Dave resubmitted, I emailed the banker who had refused to work with me earlier that year and informed him of everything Dave had worked with me on, how my credit score had improved and how Chase had declined the loan on a technicality. That banker was on vacation. The banker covering for him responded promptly that he would be happy to work with me and began processing the mortgage loan. His name is Noori. I looked his name up immediately because I knew he was a message. Noori means “light” and his surname means “God has healed”. I later told him his mother named him well because he was a light and a blessing for me in that process.

God is so very good! If you get nothing else from this long report, please get that whatever God has for you, He will walk you into step by step. As frustrating as my home purchase process was, I KNEW I was going to finish well. I KNEW I was going to own a home at the end of it. I KNEW God was telling me what to do and who to trust in every step of the process.

Gratitude isn’t enough…

I don’t think a week has passed in the last year, that I have walked into my home without feeling awe. I’m impressed. At least once or twice a week I walk into my home and thank God for giving me such a beautiful place to call home here. The way He brought everything together still stuns me. He’s amazing!

My last manager told me that where I lived was an impressive tidbit for her to share in her circles. She would tell people, “My administrative assistant just bought an apartment on Park Avenue.” She would report how big their eyes would get. I would remind her that I was OFF of Park Avenue in HARLEM. She would respond: “It doesn’t matter. You’re on Park Avenue, that’s all anyone cares about.”

I supported her for five years and the only thing she ever told me she told others about me was about my home purchase close to a neighborhood that should have been out of reach for a non-connected Midwest transplant working in a support role – the Upper East Side of Manhattan (that’s why Park Avenue matters).

I wanted to matter for more than my purchasing power. I was deep in the weeds of trying to secure a home in the impossibly expensive Manhattan real estate market, but what I can admit now is that the world only sees value in the dollar and what looks prestigious.

I’ve been extremely grateful for God’s provision, but I haven’t been vocal about it. This is me being vocal in the way I know best. This year has not been a financial burden to me. Indeed, I have fared far better than I would have thought had I had the energy to think of my possible situation a year later.

To me I say: Happy Anniversary, Homeowner! I’m so glad I trust God with my finances and everything else. He is the best guide and partner anyone could have.

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—

    the Most High, who is my refuge^[b]—
no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
    no plague come near your tent.