+Prayer Request

I’m about to go to have a very difficult talk with the manager of my rental agency today.  I would sure appreciate prayers that it goes well.  …  See, he doesn’t know he’s my landlord yet. 🙁

For those who don’t know, when my brother Roy had his breakdown and moved in with our mom, he couldn’t bear to let his apartment go.  He needed to know he had a place of his own to go back to.  So my mom was paying the rent on an empty apartment, which got kind of old.

Then I came back from Chicago, a depressed and nervous wreck, and needed a place to stay.  I stayed a few weeks at my mom’s house, but she didn’t really have room for me, with Roy there already… and the cat hair at her place was making me miserable.

At the time, it seemed like the best thing for everyone for me to move in to Roy’s apartment and put it to use.  (It was intended to be temporary.  Didn’t work out that way…)  I wanted to contact the rental agency right then and let them know what was going on, but Roy simply couldn’t handle that.  Even after I’d been there for months, my referring to it as "my" apartment once sent him into hysterics.  Even a few months ago – after I’d lived there a year and a half – the news that I’d packed up his books in boxes to make room for mine made him upset.

All this time I’ve wanted to be open and above-board with what’s going on.  Now that Roy has an apartment of his own again, he was finally willing to go along.  We went in and signed a statement of intent for me to assume his rights over the place.  It got held up for weeks because of a debt Roy owed them from some time back.  Now things are finally clear.

And it finally became clear to me just what I would have to do.  I have a rental application in front of me.  It wants to know the last three places I’ve been living, with contact info and so on.

"Awkward" is one word for it.  I’m so stressed out about this that I have trouble sleeping and have given myself diarrhea.  You see, I don’t lie.  I just don’t.  My mom wants me to do that – to just say I’ve been living with her the last two years.  It would be easy;  it would save a lot of trouble.  But I can’t do that.  And so she’s mad at me and telling me I’m going to get thrown out on the street and ruin Roy’s reputation as well as mine.

Technically, they do have the right to have me removed immediately.  My name is not on a contract anywhere.  But, as Chris and Mary and Fr. Gerald and others have advised me, it would be foolish business to do it.  The rent’s been paid on time, there’ve been no complaints, and so forth.  Why roll the dice on somebody new, and have the place empty and not generating revenue until they show up?

Even so.  I’m terrified.  I need the help and support of prayer.  Please do me this kindness – pray that I have the courage to do what is right, and that the manager’s heart be softened toward me and open to what I have to say.