When the Discernment Seems Wrong

6/8/21

Dear friend,

It's been a couple weeks since I wrote to you because I'm in the middle of a move. Kirk and I closed on our new house about a week and a half ago, and now we're in the slow roll of a moving process that won't be finished for a few more weeks.

This move, though, connects with what I want to talk about with you today.

If you'll recall, we've been in a long series of talking about discernment and invitations and how to live into the things we discern we're being invited to do. (If you haven't been along for the series, you're welcome to access the full archives here.)

So, what if you discern something and it turns out to be wrong?

This happened to us in this moving season we're in.

We realized we were being invited to move in mid-February of this year, and that discernment brought with it a quick noticing that we were being invited to buy a house, not rent or lease one (which is what we've been doing the last 14 years).

We began exploring possibilities.

First we looked high and low in the state of Florida, traveling anywhere from 1 to 2.5 hours away from our current home in Orlando, knowing we could gain much more house per dollar the further we moved from this metro area.

Two months into the search, we landed on a house in Lakeland, about 90 minutes from our current home, in a charming historic district that circled a large lake with walking and biking paths and a clearly vibrant community.

When it came to the house we found, Kirk and I both had the experience people talk about—the one where you walk into the house and immediately know this is the one.

It felt like we'd stepped into the house that was meant to be ours. It had a turquoise front door I absolutely loved, original hardwood floors, beautiful subway tile in the kitchen and bathroom, a rolling barn door for the bathroom, a gorgeous front and back yard, and a smallish bedroom I immediately loved for my office. Plus, it was situated on a brick-lined street.

We loved it. We thought it was the one.

We made an offer. It was accepted. We were officially under contract.

Then the problems began.

Almost immediately upon signing the contract, Kirk started feeling anxiety that wouldn't go away. The anxiety lasted for two days, at which time we received the inspection report.

Through the inspection, we learned all kinds of things that were different than we'd been told in the pre-contract period. The roof the owners thought was 10 years old, which was already a bit older than we wanted the roof to be, was actually 15 to 18 years old and would need to be replaced in the next couple years. The wiring our realtor had assessed and thought was up to date when he showed us the house was actually very old cloth wiring that an insurance company wasn't likely to cover, which meant the whole house would need to be rewired.

And that was just the beginning.

It wasn't the home for us. We knew that immediately, and it really made me sad.

But beyond the sadness of losing the house, what did this say about our discernment? Had we been wrong? Did we miss something somewhere?

Well, yes and no.

I often say data plays an important role in discernment. And the data we had before we went under contract—that the roof was 10 years old and the wiring was updated—was incorrect. Now that we had new data, our discernment needed to shift.

Additionally, the experience ended up doing a lot to clarify our true invitations in this season.

We've known from the beginning that this move signifies and makes possible something larger going on in our lives right now. Both Kirk and I have sensed momentum growing in our work lives—momentum that has been building for a while but hasn't been able to burst forth within the constraints of our current home.

From the beginning of the house search, though, I wanted to move from one historic, enchanted home into another. I wanted something unique and beautiful, something irreplaceable and different with our new house. That house in Lakeland fit that desire exactly.

The inspection report taught me what such a preference would cost, both literally and figuratively. A home that needed immense amounts of money, time, and care poured into it from day one would never help us reach the greater invitation to increased momentum and focus and capacity we’d been naming and seeking to live into with this move.

I'll be honest: I felt embarrassed about all this.

I'd already started telling folks about the house in Lakeland, sharing the listing and photos and news and celebration with different people, and then I had to recant all that.

I had to say we were wrong. I had to name we were starting over. I had to say our discernment wasn't right—and I'm the one who lives and writes about discernment! It was humbling.

But also, it was true.

One thing I know and want to offer to you in your own places of possibly "wrong" discernment is this: Nothing is irrevocable. Every place we land, even if we got there through "wrong" discernment, we can be met. We can be found. We can be led again from where we now are.

It's not about being right or wrong. It's about starting from where we are, every single time.

You, as a person, are not wrong or illegitimate if your discernment process leads you somewhere you eventually realize isn't your place to land. You aren't cancelled, mocked, or left there. You get to begin again.

(By the way, the home we closed on a week and a half ago? It's a brand-new construction. No roof or wiring problems with this one!)

Yours in the right and wrong of things,
Christianne