Open doors ... closed doors...

Yesterday was a strange and complex day on the house hunting horizon. The first thing that happened was that someone asked to speak to me after church. In a sombre tone, this man explained to me that he and his wife were separating.... she was returning to their own country while he was going to stay on in Spain for a couple of years. Then he planned also to return to his home nation - where and when they would again seek reconciliation and the restoration of their marriage. In the meantime, he/they wondered if I would be interested in sharing the large Spanish home they'd been renting: I'd have my own area of the house and my rent would be the same as I've been paying over the past decade. It looked like an open door...

It probably goes without saying that I turned down this unusual offer. For my entire life, I've clung to the biblical value of "avoiding the appearance of evil," and I had no sense that God was saying it was time to compromise that now. It was definitely a closed door for me.

Last night, I dedicated a couple of hours to my usual Sunday evening and Monday morning task: searching through every single estate agent's website that exists, looking for possible rental flats that I could go to view this week. Usually there are a handful of possibilities that I can phone on Monday morning. They either give me an appointment, say they'll phone back with an appointment, or they give me the usual rejection due to my not meeting the "requirements."

But last night, despite expanding my search to every little town and village in the region, there was just nothing. Nada! Not even a single possibility that I could phone for a visit. I know it's because spring is the time that people begin to try to rent out their properties by the week, rather than the month. Why accept a tenant who'll pay rent of €1000 a month when you could have multiple holidaymakers paying €1000 a week all summer? It definitely seemed to be another closed door.... but, of course, I'll go through the whole process again this morning - in case there are some new listings on some of the websites.

Close to bedtime, I got a text message from a missionary family that attends my church. "We're praying for you," they said, "and asking the Lord if there's any way we can help. Would you be interested in living with us if there was a separate apartment with its own entrance?"

Turns out the big house that they're renting has a little one-roomed "granny flat" in the garden. If their landlord agreed, it could be a short term housing solution while I continue to wait for breakthrough both here and in Scotland. It seems it could be an open door, at least for the short term...

Open doors, closed doors... and sometimes the open doors end up closing when investigated. This morning, I'm again praying my Canadian friend's breath prayer (read about it here): Father, I trust you to open a door for me.