Shelia, thank you for asking me to share about hope with you today.

God has always been a part of my life. He’s carried me through the valleys and rejoiced with me at the peaks.

The ocean is one place where I feel especially close to God.

For years my family visited Holden Beach, North Carolina. My husband dreamed of owning beachfront property, and one year we found a little two-bedroom condo up for sale.

When we bought it, we named it Beach Blessing. For years it was a blessing to us. Then we decided we’d outgrown our little three-bedroom house in Wilmore. Our Realtor introduced us to a builder, and we signed papers to build a new house. Weeks before we were to move in, the builder disappeared with our money. It’s a long story, but we didn’t own the land, so we lost a lot of money. And we’d sold our little house. So we had to move. After much prayer, we decided the time had come to sell our Beach Blessing. This was also the time the economy tanked around 2006.

While waiting for it to sell, we continued to rent the condo out, and God provided us with good rental years. Yes, years. We dropped the price and updated our unit. After six long years, we decided to paint the paneling, put in tile floors, remove wallpaper from the bathrooms, and make some serious changes. We fell in love with the condo again, and we began to wonder if we could manage to keep it.

Tim and I spent a week working on the place, walking the beach, and praying. We wavered. Renew our contract with the real estate agent, or take it off the market and keep renting it out to vacationers.

On the next to last day of our time at the beach, I asked God for a sign that we were to continue trying to sell. I asked for a conch shell. I’ve never found a conch shell on Holden Beach, but others have. The day was beautiful as I walked by myself. Tim stayed behind working on a project. As I walked a wave crashed, and a conch shell appeared.

My heart stopped. God had specifically answered my question. Thanks be to God.

But now I had to tell Tim.

I turned around filled with joy and dread. Once inside I told Tim the story and showed him the shell. The disappointment on his face broke my heart. Then his face brightened, and he announced the shell was a whelk, not a conch.

In the end we decided to accept the shell as a sign from God, and we put the condo back on the market. After years of hoping and praying, Beach Blessing sold in less than a month from the day I found the shell.

God’s timing is not our timing. Keep believing and hoping, and trust God!

Hebrews 10:23 (NIV)²³  Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

About Jackie: 

Jackie is not published yet, but she has written more than one story. Some writing awards she has received are Finalist in 2015 Genesis Romantic Suspense, Second Place Romance in the 2013 Writers of the Storm Category 5 Contest, 2014 Genesis Semifinalist Romantic Suspense, top 200 of the Family Fiction Short Story Contest in 2014, and Daphne du Maurier Second Place Inspirational in 2014. Jackie is a member of ACFW, ACFW Kentucky, and Bluegrass Christian Writers.

Jackie heard about a woman who bought a house with all of the belongings intact. The owner had disappeared, and his house was auctioned off. When the woman got inside, his closet was full of clothes. He’d even purchased new shirts and ties that had never been opened. Why had he never been found? Jackie began to wonder what horrible event would cause a man to disappear.

Jackie wanted to show that we need God, and each other, to live in this world, and nothing is better than God bringing a special person into our lives to love and form a cord of three strands.

On a personal note, Jackie feels blessed to be married to the man of her dreams, Tim Layton. She is the mother of two wonderful sons, Bill and Scott. If you’ve ever heard the phrase daughter-in-love, you know that’s how Jackie thinks of Bill’s wife, Amanda. Their daughters, Brooke and Allie, light up any room they enter.

Jackie is a pharmacist by day and author by night. She writes love stories that honor God and give hope to the reader. To follow Jackie, drop by her porch at: http://jackiesbackporch.blogspot.com