Renovating, Hiking and Spiritual Blessings

We are now in full strike mode at school.  Ironically, one of the things the union dislikes is all the contract workers (aka my husband) and part-timers (my husband).  They want more job security (as always) and more full-time work.  However, if we hadn't had the contract work and part-time work offered to us, we wouldn't have had a job.  Though the union didn't like that, in our case, it worked out!  We were grateful for it.

Wanting to take advantage of an unfortunate situation, we decided this was a bit of a free gift of time.  I didn't want to push my husband too much as he has lots of things he could do, but I made some subtle and not-so-subtle hints as to how he could spend his time, such as, "How 'bout we blow out that wall?"  or "Wanna finish this room or that room?"  He seemed interested.....Though he's on strike with teaching, his research job is still up and running, but it's just really quiet on campus, so he's there all day, but now he's home at night. 

Last weekend, when he came home, I suggested it one more time, "Wanna break down a wall?"  I kind of remember a raised eyebrow, which made me think, guess I'm pushing too hard....but a few minutes later, he walked in with a sledgehammer.  I LOVE sledgehammers.  Some of the kids were on the couch, not paying any attention to what was about to happen.  Suddenly, "WHAM!"  The demolition had begun.  I cannot tell you how happy that made me!  We were on our way into being well over our heads...again...as we took down the other walls of our family room.  By walls, I mean, all the old drywall, insulation, etc.  We did take some other minor walls out to make better entryways into the family room, though.  It makes it look so much more open!  By the end of the weekend, my husband's muscles were killing him and the mess was nearly complete.  This picture is what it looked like that first day.....The white wall on the left is now gone and it will be our new entry into the family room.  Where my husband is standing will ultimately be our dining room as the kitchen is quite squished with all of us in there around a table.

I think people think I'm joking when I ask for renovations for my birthday, but I'm not joking!  This was the greatest gift to me!  And, as an added bonus, he's taking all of next week off, seeing as he doesn't have his teaching job anyway, and he'll just go at the house for a solid week.  I haven't had him around like that now for over a year.  That is gift enough just to have him around 24/7 for a few days.  Depending on how far he gets, he might even move into the kitchen where we have to do some more insulating.  If that happens, I think I'll lose my mind with excitement!

On the thanksgiving note again, the younger 4 kids and I went out on a hike yesterday.  I googled, "Hikes nearby" and this new hike came up that we'd never been to that was only 10 minutes away.  But before we left, I had to do a quick search for my wallet.  I knew I'd had it the day before on the way to the library, but I couldn't remember where I'd put it.  The thought occurred to me that maybe it had fallen off my lap when I'd gotten out of the car that day, but I hadn't noticed it, so it seemed unlikely.  I was clearly feeling frazzled and must have showed it.  My five year old suddenly says, "Be thankful Mom!"  "What?"  I said shocked.  One of the other kids said, "He's telling you to be thankful because that's what you tell us!"  "Oh!  Yes!  Right!  Sorry!  You're right!"  So I told them that I would do that.  I quickly prayed, "Lord, thank you that for some reason I've misplaced my wallet.  Please help me to find it and thank you for the kids reminding me to be thankful."  Then, I quickly called the library and lo and behold, they had it.  I must have dropped it like I thought in the parking lot.  "They have it!"  I exclaimed to the kids.  "Wow!  That was fast!" they all said.  Such a great reminder from the mouths of babes. 

After I picked up my wallet, the thought also occurred to me to check the oil as our car had been leaking oil and I didn't want to find myself in a bad situation.  Sure enough, right out.  I immediately felt frustrated at my older daughter as she is the one driving it all the time and she is the one that is supposed to do all the checking and filling.  My kids said it again.  "Be thankful!"  I sighed.  Yes, yes.  Be thankful.  So again, I said to them, "You're right.  This could have been more serious.  At least we remembered to check it before it was too late.  We remembered when we were close to a gas station."  So many reasons to be thankful. 

Finally, we were off on our hike.  We ended up in this somewhat secret location.  There were no big signs, no real markings that we were at the right place, except for a very subtle sign you could have easily missed.  I thought maybe we were at someone's place even.  We kept walking towards the escarpment and found a trail that went up.  My kids were in awe.  It was so beautiful.  How did we not know about this place?  Within minutes, we found a brown snake, then salamanders everywhere, coloured leaves, moss, ferns, chipmunks.  It was all so beautiful to take in.  Then, we saw the view of vineyards and the lake from the height we were at.  Incredible.  We just kept stopping in amazement.

Then, we came across a young lady and her mom hiking also.  She seemed to enjoy watching our kids and commented that it reminded her of when she used to look for snakes with her brother, too. We ran into them again on our way back down from the hike.  She called us over and said, "Want to see a cave?"  She took the older 3 kids right to the edge of the escarpment and showed them a secret cave only someone who knew the trail really well would know.  My kids loved it!  I hated it because it was so close to the edge, but just held my breath till they came back.  Then, she took us down the trail and said, "I'll show you an ancient carving that no one knows about, too!"  Who was she?  An angelic tour guide?  Sure enough, she took us to this rock where an old carving was in the rock of a native face with his feather headdress.  It was incredible and again, only someone who knew the trail could have seen that.  It was clearly authentic and I felt like I was back in history which was really neat because we were just studying that in Canadian history in our homeschool.  Turns out, she really did know the trail.  Basically it was her backyard when she grew up.  She returned as an adult just for nostalgia that day as she was home from across the country to visit her mom.  Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but I think it was all part of the miracle of being thankful that we met her.  Had I not stopped and found my wallet, then stopped and filled the car with oil, all the while being reminded that I should be thankful by my kids, we would have missed meeting her and having the most amazing history lesson!  I felt like God really did give us an angelic tour guide that day.  She was the only other person on the trail, with her mom (other than another lady who was lost!), besides us.  It made the hike just that much more special.

It also tied in with a book on prayer we're going through by Peter Dyneka, a Russian missionary, called Much Prayer Much Power.  We've tried to kick it up a notch lately, by not just focusing on ourselves as we like to do.  Instead I've reinstated the prayer boxes where we pray for specific things each day.  So, for example, today will be International Needs.  We have switched to prayer jars (as all my boxes got broken!).  In each jar is a card with an international need, such a North Korea, the international leaders, like Trump and Trudeau, or all the disasters going on around the world.  It is helping our kids realize there are other things to pray for outside our family.  One of the things Dyneka said yesterday though was that as we pray for others, we get blessed.  I've been asking God to show this to my kids.  Yesterday felt like such a huge blessing to them.  I can't help but think it is all related in the spiritual realm.....praying for others, going through trials, learning thankfulness, seeing miracles, major and minor ones, being blessed in the process.....Even if for some reason it's one giant coincidence that all those things happened, it sure made for just one awesome day. 

I prefer to have spiritual eyes, where I make connections between trials, prayers, and blessing.  Living in the world of "coincidence" takes away all the joy.