“The bank transaction pages you submitted won’t work,” Jill Brown, the woman from the mortgage company on the other end of the phone line, said. “We need the bank’s URL at the bottom of each page, or the underwriters won’t accept it.”
My heart raced as sudden paperwork needs for the house purchase slammed us again. It was Friday, February 25, and if all went right, we could close on the place on Monday, February 28.
But all was not going right.
The thorny path up to that moment pricked my mind again. We had signed a purchase agreement in October 2020 on a gutted home the seller was going to finish for us, but all these months later, several things remained undone—items the seller refused to do for us to meet the VA loan requirements. Our original mortgage financials from months earlier were squared away, back when we thought all would be completed in the house when we moved in. But now we needed a rehab loan to finish the work, and starting late January, we scrambled to provide the necessary documents, the process becoming much more complicated.
The week had been all about paperwork, and every piece felt dire and impossible. We needed to show proof of a last-minute required chunk of money moving—having cleared one account and posted to another—even though we had initiated the transaction only hours earlier. And we immediately needed a copy of a future bank statement. Since we didn’t have it, I had scanned pages of our financial transactions and sent them off, hoping they’d work, and now we knew they didn’t. The finish line to home ownership neared, but would we stall out because of missing URLs?
They say God’s never late and never early; He’s right on time. That sounds like good news, but I tried telling that to my stomach, twisting in the dark as I hoped to sleep each night. The ordeal surrounding our new home battered me again, along with all the emotions—anger, fear, anxiety—that had rattled my faith for almost a year and a half.
Ms. Brown, still on the phone with me, waited. Husband sat in front of the desktop computer, searching for alternate ways to pull up our bank transaction pages showing a URL on each to prove we hadn’t generated the documents ourselves. I clicked around on my laptop too, praying an answer would materialize. But how? The solution to all our problems, the newest bank statement, was days away.
Ms. Brown drew a breath and delivered a sentence that punched the rest of the air out of me. “And just so you know, we need legitimate proof of your bank transactions before closing today. Keep in mind it’s 3:40 p.m. for you there in Minnesota, but that puts it at 4:40 p.m. here in Michigan where the underwriters are. They close at 5:00.”
I glanced at the clock as if to verify her words, and an eye twitched. My stomach flipped. Twenty minutes to produce the impossible. Of all the roadblocks, would this be the one to stop the process? The seller had already thrown down every obstacle over many months, wishing to thwart our purchase and sell our house to someone else for more money. And most recently, he demanded a closing of February 28—or else. Or else what? He would take us to court, he threatened, forcing us to sign a cancellation of our purchase agreement, and he would rent out our house, starting March 1. His threats, though illegal, empty, and irrational, still spun me into worry and sleeplessness. And now within the next twenty minutes, the underwriters needed what we couldn’t give them.
“Can I call you right back?” I asked Ms. Brown.
After ending our connection, I abandoned my laptop, dropped to the floor, and pressed my forehead against the cool wood.
God, save us! We don’t have what we need, but You can do the impossible. Do it now!
Husband pattered away on the keyboard. Distress blanketed me—and so did nausea. Another glimpse at the clock: 3:45.
I pulled myself off the floor and grabbed my laptop again. We couldn’t get to the bank, request the legitimate proof, scan it, and send it to the underwriters inside of fifteen minutes. So, what could we do?
I refreshed our online banking page. Wait. Could it be?
The newest bank statement, showing the money had posted to our account, popped up—days earlier than usual. Tears formed, blurring my screen.
With a new call to Ms. Brown and a few keystrokes, we flew the document to Michigan with seven minutes to spare.
Never late, never early. But right on time.
Yes, He is.
