You're about to read a story about a miracle. It was the moment my family was saved from the worst decision I ever made.
Though I was a pastor for eleven years--maybe because of that--I'm the kind of person who is aggravated by how religious people use terms like this, often and freely. Miracles are moments where the impossible is accomplished right before your eyes.
Miracles are meant to be rare.
I've only ever used the term about one moment in my life, and it has become a definitive milestone in a similar way that the birth of Christ marks the crux of the common era calendar. This is the moment in my life where there is only "everything before" and "everything after".
Starter Home
My wife Mandy and I moved to Roseburg, OR in 2011 as newlyweds. Though we no longer live there, it is our "heart home" where we birthed all three of our kids and raised them alongside our friends' newborns. My nine years there amount to the longest stretch I've ever lived in one place in my nomadic life as a preacher's kid. I'm the scout in the troop who is wearing a merit badge for "most hometowns" (10).
After a year of renting a modest apartment, we found ourselves in a position to buy our first home. Eventually, we found something that fulfilled our young adult dreams--an edge-of-town property with a big backyard, a sort of legal firepit (ok, not all that legal), and extra room for future family members to inhabit.
To this day I think of the careful prayers we offered, asking God to guide us in this important decision, maybe not expecting a literal sign from the heavens, but feeling like we got one anyway. As a reminder, my name is KORY and my wife's name is MANDY. Our house sat at the corner of these streets:

I mean, if you're looking for a sign...
I don't know if I'll ever unravel the spiritual complexity of that part of the story, but we did close on this house, hung the "SOLD" tag on the realtor's post, and blasted it on social media with great celebration.
And a year later, everything unraveled.
Attention to Detail
I sat in a sunlit living room in a hand-me-down Lazyboy recliner from my grandpa. We were one year into our homeownership, and I stared at a crack in our wall that came down from the ridge of our ceiling.
"I think that crack is longer than before."
Mandy looks at me from our moose-brown couch. "You're being pessimistic."
As far as personality traits go, she hit it on the nose, but also, the crack was longer. In the following week, we booked a foundation specialist to survey our home and give us a bid for repair. We didn't like his bid. So we got another one.
I want to pause here and reflect on the merits of pessimism because there are a few things in the home-buying process that I've found buyers should be overly cautious about.
Never assume your home has only as much damage as you see with your eyes.
Never assume the state of your home in the Summer is the same state as the Winter.
Never assume that your inspector will advise you to be worried about a crack in the cinder block when you point to it directly and ask him during the inspection, "is that the kind of crack I should be worried about?"
Never assume that your realtor will disclose to you that your home was built by a high school shop class in the '70s before your move-in day.
Never assume that a seller's disclosure document that reads "some settling near the garage" isn't just using a metaphor for "as much settling as possible, everywhere imaginable".
Never assume that, when you need to seek out your inspector to vouch for their report, that they are not residing now indefinitely in the African bush.
Add these to your list of questions for your next realtor.
Still, I was in my mid-20s with no construction background whatsoever, so what else would I do but trust the professionals and depend on their recommendations and legally bound disclosures?
That's how we got two nearly identical bids to repair our foundation which had sunk 6" from its original position for $55,000, just twelve months after buying our first home.
Six Years
What do you do next when you can't do anything?
We made about 1/2 the income required to supply these repair funds and had no equity in the home. So we stayed there.
The next six years felt like we were voyaging in a ship with holes in the hull that can't be patched. How soundly do you sleep when you know you need to be bailing buckets of water?
This doesn't mean life was bad for us, and those were some of the most special years of our lives in every other way. We got a dog--a border collie named Skywalker--who was neurotic to the core, but a pretty lovable fellow, who chose to make the most of the 1/4 acre yard by always sitting directly on my feet. All three of our sons were born during those years, and watched them learn how to walk, cleaned up 11,000 spilled Cheerios, and watched with full hearts as they would "read" picture books to new little brothers.
I received the unique attention of my wife's made-up holidays like Birthday Kwanzaa (BDK is seven days of gifts leading up to your birthday!) and Pre-Father's Day Father's Day-Pre. This is the day before Father's Day, the year before you become a Father. Double pre. Once in a lifetime. Also, it's the end of BDK for reasons that every parent will understand.
I was privileged to pastor at a church where I had a lifetime mentor as my boss, a man who turned me on to road biking, and who possesses the sickest calves you'll ever see on anyone 65+. I worked down the hall from several people who, to this day, are the best friends I've ever had, who keep up even now when there's half a country between us.
My family delighted in the playground of Oregon, summiting mountains, kayaking rivers, and camping with portable cribs in our tents. We were happy.
We just had a problem that was impossible to fix.
And barely a day passed that I didn't dread what would happen when it had to be confronted.
Then, that day came.
The Rent Comes Due
By 2019, the ever-expanding and contracting soil beneath our foundation had so damaged our home that the front of the house had a bottom-half brick facade actually sloughing off, completely separating from the external plywood and threatening to faceplant in our front yard. There were hallways where any ball would go from a rest to a roll, and cracks snaked out of the corner of our window sills like dandelion roots.
It was evident that we were nearing an event of irreparable damage if we did not address our home's condition soon, so we called our friends at the foundation companies to come for another visit.
My wife and I both have this vivid memory of sitting at the table with this inspector who had just surveyed our home, how he was sweating and somber, looking like a resident doctor who is entering his first waiting room to break the news to a family about a loved one.
We'd been through this once before, so even with the warning signs, we were steeled for the moment. Or so we thought.
$118,000
Many people have been through intense traumas in life, moments which seem to stop your heart and cause you to choke on reality. Getting a repair bill for more than half the purchase value of your home has a dubious placement among some top-tier awful things that can happen to humans, and it also holds a categorical portion of the trauma pie chart that is extremely small, and very few others can comfort you by saying they've experienced it as well.
"I've never seen a home this bad."
This, by the way, is not the bedside manner I would recommend when companioning someone in their trauma, but we got the message.
We had already been down this road before and knew that there was no lawyering out of this. We were holding the bag, and the rent was due. This problem could no longer be postponed, and there was no way we could afford it.
It was impossible.
Miracles are moments where the impossible is accomplished right before your eyes.
The Point of Pain
Part 2 is coming next week. I know. Be patient!
But I want to stop for a moment and ask you as a reader if anything is happening in your life at this moment that feels impossible. Where is the dread that is haunting you?
You're not alone. And it's not over.
Everyone's life has a truer story that lies under the surface of their social media posts and their "I'm fine" conversation. Maybe you're not publishing yours on a blog, but it's still there. I hope you can find some companionship in a story like this because it is important for us to share in despair and the unfairness of life, especially when we haven't yet seen the break in the clouds.
You're not the only one who hurts. It's ok that you do. It's normal, and your pain matters.
Take a courageous step to share it with a friend who will hear you say "life's not fair". You deserve to be heard, and people will amaze you with their willingness to sit shiva with you.
This week, a wonderful friend from my Oregon years took his life at a young age. I'm certain that there are so many who, like me, wish we could have known the depth of the pain that he carried in his mind, what made him despair, how alone and hopeless he must have felt. I wish I could have been there to share in his despair, if nothing else that he would know that there was one more person who knew what he was going through, who hurt for him.
I loved him, and I miss him.
I can't tell you why we go through the things we go through. When you work in hospice for a year where every patient is terminal, all of the "here's why" dries up fast. People act like they know why, and they don't. They just don't.
But I will tell you that what your pain does is draw you into a shared human experience. So don't ignore it. Don't bear it alone.
Just because a story ends up here, doesn't mean this is the end.
Wow. I can’t even imagine being in that situation. I‘m anxious to hear how it resolved!
We remember that painful journey as well. How our hearts ached for you. Life comes with some pretty difficult, seemingly unbearable lessons. You have borne them well, with God leading you each step of the way through your personal “valley of shadows.“ I know the story of the miracle at the end and can’t wait to read about it...next time.