It's a Wonderful Life!

Have you ever watched the movie "It's a Wonderful Life"?  Do you remember the characters Mr. Potter and George Bailey?  We have found ourselves speaking of the bank that held our mortgage as that "warped, frustrated old bank".  (And yes, we say it in our best Jimmy Stuart voices!)

Don't you just love good old George Bailey?



This is one of my favorite scenes from the movie...

 You'd better sit down for this blog post.
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Are you sitting down yet?  I'm serious.  This is shockingly amazing!
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A real life George Bailey has stepped in and offered to pay off our mortgage to Mr. Potter, pardon me, Wells Fargo, and accept payments from us whenever we can and whatever amounts we can!

We no longer will have to fear that we might lose our farm ever again!

This is such an amazing answer to prayer and an overwhelmingly huge blessing!

Praise the Lord!

This individual has the resources and the desire to help people and also the desire to prevent greedy bank institutions from getting away with bullying the little guy.  Wells Fargo has been just like Mr. Potter to us. After eight months of our exciting adventures in unemployment, in which we had paid all of our payments and not one was even late, we began to fall behind and were advised by certain caring persons to contact the bank and see what assistance might be available to us.  We were even current on our loan when we spoke with them,  however, because we were unemployed we were too needy to qualify for help.  Frustrated by that conclusion and after asking many questions Steve eventually found himself speaking with the supervisor of the Home Preservation Department and he was told, that even though at that point our loan was up to date, because our "circumstances had changed" since the inception of the loan we could "no longer afford our home".  This was terribly frustrating to us and frightening also.

During the time frame in which we were receiving several phone calls a day from dear old Mr. Potter, I had one phone conversation in which the bank employee was pressuring me to set a date when I would have the money to make a payment.  I told him that I didn't have the money that morning, didn't have it that afternoon and still didn't have it then and unless a miracle occurred I wouldn't have it tomorrow either.  I asked him how many calls in one day constituted harassment to which he answered that it was an attempt to collect a debt and the calls would continue until I paid.  I can understand why people fall apart under such trials.  It is very unpleasant and frightening to face losing your home.

After we knew that we would be refinancing with the generous and compassionate individual I informed Wells Fargo that I did not intend to make any further payments to them as we were in the process of refinancing.  She gave a weighty pause and then said with a condescending tone, "You do realize that being behind on your payments will negatively affect your credit and you may not be able to get financing from anyone else?"  It was soooo wonderful to be able to tell her that we had already been approved!

Then the wonderful, joyful day arrived when this God-sent person and I were having a three-way phone conversation with the bank for the purpose of making an electronic transfer to pay our mortgage loan in full. (Not your usual, average, run-of-the-mill sort of day.)  Everything proceeded smoothly, I was still in a very pleasant state of euphoria when, to my immense amusement the Wells Fargo employee told me what a valued customer I had been and offered me a credit card!!

It has been an immeasurable blessing for us to know that the bank won't foreclose on us!  We won't ever again have to bear the burden of fear and stress and what ifs of the uncertainty of our future in regards to whether we will lose the home and farm that we have dreamt of for many years and sacrificed to get our family to.  At the beginning of our adventures we began wondering if we had made a mistake and stepped out of God's will for our family but we were in a situation where we had nowhere to go and no money to get us anywhere else so we *knew* that God had us right where He wanted us.  Now we have it confirmed to us by this miraculous turn of events.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

"The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
Those who know your name will trust in you,
for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you."
Psalm 9:9-10

It truly is a wonderful life!