The "faith" of unbelievers...

If you are one of the people that receives my weekly prayer updates, you'll remember that just a few years ago I asked you to pray for my neighbour who lives in the house back to back with mine. (We're the yellow block on the map to the right; I live in Lemon Street and she lives in Orange Street.) After her husband died, an estranged stepson appeared and threatened to evict her from her lifelong home, so that he could claim "his half" of it. (My friend's husband had not left a will, as it seemed obvious that she was the only one who would inherit the house that they had bought together with her parents.) My friend faced the daunting reality that her house could be sold out from under her, and her half of the money would not even be sufficient to buy a tiny one bedroom flat for herself and the dogs.

I invited you to pray for her and this crisis situation, and God responded in an amazing way: out of the blue, a "benefactor" came along (a friend of a friend; someone she didn't even know) and offered to buy out the other half of the house, with an agreement that Matilde could continue living in it until the end of her lifetime - at which point the house would become his. While this was obviously a good deal for the benefactor (who was essentially buying a house for just half of what it was worth), it was also the miracle that my neighbour was needing, so that she could live out the rest of her lifetime in her own home.

My friend is not a believer, but that experience went a long way to increasing her belief in the power of prayer. It was so completely unexpected and so "out of the box" in terms of a solution, that she could only put it down to a miracle of answered prayer. Now she's saying to me that we need to pray for a similar miracle for myself!

In some ways, what she says is true. Hours of searching the internet have shown me that there is genuinely no rental house or flat listed that is not well above my total monthly income. And while everyone says that buying a home is cheaper than renting, they don't take into account the fact that even selling a three or four bedroomed house in Scotland would barely buy a studio or a one bedroomed flat in my part of Spain. I understand when my neighbour says that the only solution is another mystery benefactor to make it possible to rent or buy my new home here in Spain.

I also know, though, that God doesn't necessarily do the same miracle twice. He is infinitely creative and can answer my prayers with a completely different "out of the box" solution to my housing situation.... just as He has provided homes in so many different ways in the past.

But I'm nonetheless thankful for the "faith" of my neighbour. It tells me that my presence in this neighbourhood and our friendship over the past decade have opened her eyes to the fact that God exists and has the power to do amazing and unexpected things in answer to prayer. 

I don't yet know what the miracle will be in my present situation and, to be honest, I'm not even sure what my next steps should be. Should I go to view rooms or flats for rent, even though I know that the asking price is more than I have available? Is that the step of faith that God is asking me to take? (like the first widow I wrote about on 3rd January in this blog; see the post below this one.) 

I can only trust that the miracle God does on my behalf this time will not only strengthen my own faith, but also the slowly emerging faith of my unbelieving friends and neighbours.