Apartment Finding Victory!

Here's the View from my apartment!

Hello from rainy Chicago. It's green. It's beautiful. But the rain has to stop by Ben's Memorial Mile on Saturday. Check it out at Bensmemorialmile.com. So exciting. Costume mile! Children's activities, fast runners, slower runners, and walkers...all raising money for schizophrenia research and suicide prevention, in the name of my sweet son. 

Continuing from the last blog post...
Here's how I got those walls to turn into little pebbles at my feet. In the last blog I wrote about getting guidance, and chanting to change myself in ways that felt unchangeable. This prayer lead me to breaking through. 

For the past few weeks, apartment hunting has been my full time job. The owner of my apartment wants to move back in after June. The housing market is incredibly hot where I live in Florida. It's been tough! Many apartments were rented already when I called...and what was available was, for the most part, not so great. Every day I woke up to scale this mountain, and every day I was frustrated!

I had a deadline. I had to find my new place before I left for Ben's Memorial Mile on the 13th. It felt impossible. But I'm a Buddha, just like YOU are! We practice to make the impossible happen. We have the ultimate tool for changing our lives - Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

So, I got guidance, started chanting three hours a day...and deepening my prayer. What does this mean? I told the Gohonzon...my life...that I had the courage to see what I didn't have the courage to see before...to change my basic life tendencies that are holding me back.

And on Monday...(the day before I was to leave for Chicago) I finished my three hours of chanting and the phone rang. It was my friend Mikaela. She told me she'd been outside her apartment (not far from where I live) and a couple came by on their bikes. They told her they live in the building I live in. (It's an historic building right on the beach). They said they live on the first floor and have been trying to sell a one bedroom apartment on the fourth floor.

Boom. I knew exactly what would happen. I knew their fourth floor apartment was going to be mine! I contacted them. They showed me their gorgeous place, but weren't sure they wanted to rent it. I connected them with the person I'm renting from now, so he could give me a glowing reference...and I chanted another three hours the next morning.  

And...

We signed the lease agreement half an hour before I left for the airport for Ben's Memorial Mile. The apartment is so beautiful! All updated...bigger than where I live, and unfurnished so I will have a fun project when I get back. The view is just like mine...overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. I took off for Chicago relieved...happy...victorious! 

Whatever your walls are...you can break through them too. You can seek guidance from your seniors in faith. You can grow in ways you can't even imagine. 

Never give up hope!