I talked about running the race this week based on Hebrews 12 to the homeschool moms. The guest speaker at church had described it as more of a steeplechase, not your average race. In a regular race you just go round and round, but in a steeplechase you go around, jump over hurdles, land in water and then another racer usually lands on your head right after that. That is more like real life, he said. So true!!! Trials don't just come in ones, they come in multiples.
We've had a week like that, I'd have to say. Nothing too major, but a whole lot of minors. We had a huge rain storm this past week. I was sitting in our newly insulated and drywalled family room, when suddenly I heard a dripping. Somewhere a leak had started that had water slowly coming into the house, drip by drip, down the new walls. Now it is frozen, but we don't know if damage was created. A little discouraging. Only Spring will tell.
Then, more humourous than anything, our front door handle just fell off! How does that happen?! No problem, we just stuck in back on temporarily, but it's like my husband keeps saying, "Our house is falling apart faster than I can fix it?!" So that makes him feel bad.
This one is my fault...In the name of being "fun mom", I, perhaps stupidly, let my young kids wear roller blades in the house. Ok, not a smart move. But our floors were being ripped up, so, to me, it didn't matter if the old laminate flooring got ruined. What I didn't anticipate was them going back and forth over the tile at the front door, back into the kitchen, over and over again. You guessed it, the tiles are now all cracked and breaking up along the edge of the entrance to the kitchen. Can't believe it. I quickly put an end to the "fun mom" and became the "fun police". Another thing that can be fixed, but is more work for you-know-who. Bad mom, bad mom.....
The next trial is also humourous, but is also DISGUSTING. Our dumb cats decided in the last two weeks to make our bathroom their bathroom. But they don't use the toilet, they go near the toilet, or worse, in the towel cupboard! (Did I mention that cupboard door fell off? Argh!!!!) I walk around in shock that I have to clean up cat poo and cat pee in MY BATHROOM!!! Needless to say, we locked them in the basement with food, water and their litter box to remind them, no, they aren't humans, they are cats. Oh my goodness....I am usually fond of cats, but this week, hate 'em.
Hopefully, you are laughing by now....I am. As I write all of this, it just seems so hilarious!
Somewhere in the middle of this, our truck died. No small fix either. The fix is not only time intensive (which RM doesn't have), but costly.
Oh, and then, our other car died. Uh oh. All the lights went on the fritz on the dashboard and it started to not run normally. Somehow, at work, RM managed to take off the dash board on his lunch break (nice lunch break!), re-solder some of the connections making the lights all work again, but it isn't sounding good. We are now looking for new (er) vehicles again. Fortunately, we just had our daughter's car fixed, so we are using that to get us around. Funny how she isn't too happy about that, even though we gave her use of our vehicles for 4 years....hmmmmmm.....
So we had our classic emergency car prayer meeting when I got the call from RM about barely making it to work. I called the kids and we sat around in a circle and I reminded them of the sermon we had all heard that Sunday about trials. We then prayed, thanking God for the trials, trying to "consider it all joy" as James says. We prayed for a miracle, again. (How often do we pray for that?)
I, then, literally, got up and said, "I'm jumping in the shower. Start school." And walked away. Two minutes (or less) later, our neighbour came to our door with a cheque. We rent some of our property out to him, but we never see him and last year was such a bad year he lost money and so we didn't even get a cent from him. I can say that I haven't seen him in years. But that day, at that moment, after having prayed seconds before, there he was, with money, unexpected money. He could have come a week ago or in a month, but no, he came at that exact moment in time. All while I was in the shower. I didn't even know he had come. I got out of the shower and looked on the counter and there was this cheque. "Where did that come from? When?" I couldn't believe it. I had to take a picture to show my husband and then messaged him so he could see it for himself. What an encouragement once again to our kids, to us, that God hears our prayers. Was it enough to buy a car? No, it didn't have to be. It just was the classic tangible reminder that He knows our needs. He hears our prayers. He cares for us. I can be truly honest that I walked around all day without fear, but anticipation. What will happen? How will God work? Our kids were amazed. I love it when they see God work so quickly.
Have our trials gone away? No, according to the pastor on Sunday, until we reach the finish line, i.e. death (!), they never will. So why wish them away? Even if these ones get resolved, which they eventually will, a new one will pop up. We can't be surprised by that fact, nor can we be discouraged. That's just a fact of the steeplechase race we are in. The writer of Hebrews reminded us, that only by fixing our eyes on Jesus will we get through these ups and downs. And so we do....suddenly life becomes manageable, not overwhelming.
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