Cathy and I had long loved the beach environment and we one day finally realized we could live and work there. Our goal was to find a house close to the ocean with a good view. But after weekends of driving two hundred miles from our home and then searching and finding little that fit our desires or pocketbooks, we were becoming a bit depressed. Finally, we decided to rank what we had found. Two houses came out at the top of the list.
A second-row house had a great view but a walk-through revealed wood floors suffering from water damage, repair work underway on interior walls and floors, and a general musty smell.
The other house had been decorated by someone with great taste and flair, but it had no ocean view, and huge threatening dogs lived in a pen backing up to it.
We turned to prayer, seeking God’s guidance. One day I came home from work to hear these words from Cathy: “I think our house has something to do with the word, ‘dove.’ That’s what I keep hearing when I pray. And I also hear it is “farther down the beach.”
So we returned to the shore yet another weekend. We scoured maps and searched everywhere for Dove Street, Dove Avenue, just any street that included the name dove, or for a development with that name. We also looked farther down the beach. Nothing was found.
Just before driving home, we visited a house under construction. It was a few hundred feet from the ocean, on about the fifth row of houses. As we looked about, the couple that lived across the street came to meet us. After telling us how wonderful the neighborhood was, the husband said, “We would pay fifty thousand dollars just for the right to live in this neighborhood.” Quite an endorsement.
The next weekend we returned and drove again to the house under construction. We had by now realized it was indeed “farther down the beach,” about four blocks farther down.
Cathy and I walked through the construction rubble into the house. The rooms were taking shape, and the wood sub floors were down. As I looked about the main living area, Cathy continued out the back door.
Suddenly in a firm but not loud voice, I heard her say, “John, come out here.”
I walked to where she was standing. She had a finger at her lips, motioning me to be quiet.
Cathy said not a word but pointed down to the right. There standing quietly and looking back at us was a dove, a real, living dove. For a moment we were overcome and absolutely still, looking at the beautiful bird and realizing the incredible hand of God.
We quickly checked out the entire house and even climbed onto a high unfinished deck. No stairs had yet been built so we had to use a ladder. Once there, we stood in awe, shocked by a spectacular view of the ocean.
We bought that house, the house farther down the beach, the house of the dove, the house to which Cathy had been guided. It was also the house with our desired view of the ocean and, as has proven to be the case and as we were told, with a great neighborhood. God is so good!
Copyright © 2017 by John Newlin
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