Multiplication Effect Story - The Holy Spirit is in the Moving Business!

The house is decorated now.  Definitely a spirit of Christmas is in the home.  Getting out all the decorations was a funny push for me.  I'd been thinking I hadn't seen any "multiplication" stories in our life for a bit where God takes something we have and multiplies it, "for free", but that happened this week when I started to decorate.  You have to picture it....

We have a fairly tiny home, but lots of people....and the people who live in it keep getting bigger and bigger, really fast.  My older boys are trying to get bigger and did this ridiculous push-up challenge with me - the oldest boy can now do 84 in a row in quick succession.  The younger one, 13, can do 50 no problem.  (I'm still stuck at 25, but can do two sets of 25 without too much effort, so I'm pretty happy with that....for a girl!)  I say that to show how much room we need just for their muscles!

We did this a year ago, too, trying to add space to a room that you can't add space to.  We took the piano out of the family room and voila, the room space multiplied.  We took the giant shelf out of the family room and, again, more space, more seating.....but still, always needing more space.

Then, it was the awful chairs.  We used to love them, but since the 4 year old took to practicing his trampoline lessons on them, I really couldn't stand looking at them anymore.  It's one thing to be trying to get out of debt.  It's another thing to try and look poverty stricken.  I wasn't trying to look poverty stricken.  It's like Brother Andrew wrote in his book, God's Smuggler, it just didn't seem the way of the Master.  I don't think God wants us to purposely give off a "woe is me" attitude.  Besides, we did have other furniture we could replace it with, but we just never thought it would fit in that room.  I had suggested it multiple times, but RM would just look at me and say, "It'll never fit - the furniture is too large scale."

But Monday, something came over me.  My poor children.  When something comes over Mommy, watch out.  I hate to use Mary and Joseph to make my point, but we read this verse this week, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."  How does this possibly apply to me?  I really believe I scare a lot of people sometimes.  It's true!  I get all sorts of crazy ideas and/or convictions and as I share them with others, I get these funny looks, even from my own kids or husband!  But this verse was awesome.  I told the kids and RM yesterday, "You see?  Don't be afraid!  The ideas I get are conceived in me from the Holy Spirit!  I knew it!"  I know, I know.  A bit of a stretch, but I do believe that even the ideas about how I can multiply our space in the home or even going on a crazy mission trip aren't put in my mind by myself.  I believe the Holy Spirit places them there!  A great encouragement for anyone that I scare - don't be afraid!

Ok, back to the house.....I called my second oldest boy and hesitantly asked him, "Uh, D, could you, uh, come down?  I just need your help moving a few things around."  He answered just as hesitantly, "Ok?????"  I could tell he was worried.  What was Mom up to?

Down he came and I explained, "Now that we have this tree, there is no space at all.  We've got to get these awful chairs out of here and see if we can get this couch here and that couch there......"  He, and all of the kids, looked at me with questioning eyes.  But they all seemed to kind of catch the vision and my enthusiasm.  I always have a bit of a double agenda - I knew there was some cleaning to be done under all the couches.....

So, with Christmas decoration boxes everywhere, toddlers scrambling to not get hit by a moving chair, forts suddenly being made with all the new hiding spaces being created, we started to move some serious furniture.  We brought in a whole other L-shaped couch, got rid of the two ripped chairs, moved another large couch to a different wall, took out a shelving unit.....everything changed. It is quite the transformation.  As always, I don't know how we didn't see it before.  But then I realized one of the things that we hadn't known what to do with was the TV.  We didn't have any place for it before.  Now that we don't really have it on, we didn't need it in the room - amazingly, that was what we needed to get rid of to make the room multiply in space.  I put it in the room next door as it also holds the stereo which we still use (I thought it wasn't working, but it is, at least half the time!  It seems to like playing just the beginnings of songs - very funny).

Now, our tiny little family room easily sits 11-13 adults or 30 kids!  Everyone wanted to know when I was moving all this furniture that was "sooooo heavy" why we couldn't wait until Dad came home to help us.  I assured them, "Dad hates doing this kind of thing."  But when he walked in, he couldn't believe the transformation.  Our room looks huge!  There is a large play space for the little kids now and they are just loving it!  My piano playing daughter had needed a shelving unit in her studio, but we just couldn't get around to picking one up - now she has one!  It came from down the hall.  She's thrilled.  Her books don't have to sit on the floor anymore.

I call it the "Multiplication Effect".  This is where God multiplies something we already have for no cost to us at all.  It's one of my favourite ways to see God work.  It's such a blessing.  Plus, I love change and tranforming spaces as I get really bored with the same furniture arrangement all the time. Getting rid of the ratty chairs really helped me, too.  Seeing them deteriorate more and more each day was starting to depress me.  Yes, I was content and grateful for them, but the rips and tears were out of control. We were thinking we were going to have to pick up something at the store we'd first purchased them, but I knew that was spending money we didn't want to spend.  Now, the room is full of furniture that is actually all fairly nice!  No rips!

It might seem like a small thing, but my life is full of these types of blessings.  It's how God works - in the small things, but in actuality, they are big things, at least to me.  It's fun to have a "new house" again, or at least a new room.  When all was said and done, my kids were very happy and have learned Mommy's ideas aren't always crazy.  You just have to hang in there to see where her ideas are going!  The Holy Spirit is in the "Moving" business!