Bashan and the 60 Cities

We expanded our house again.  We added another bedroom.  If anyone knows our house this is a true impossibility, but somehow we did it again.  Unbelievably, 2 of our kids now have their own bedrooms, well, almost...it'll be completely finished soon.  Remember...everyone is still at home.  There are TEN of us in here.

I never know how these things happen, they just do.  When we moved in to the farmhouse, there were only 4 bedrooms and 7 kids, one being just 12 months, so he had his own bedroom.  Everyone else was sharing - 3 kids to a room.  Then, over time, RM turned the garage into a room with a loft that housed 2 kids and a piano.  Amazing in itself.  Another baby was born and moved in with the baby-turned-toddler.  The 3 girls were getting too big and their room was too small for all of them.  My oldest girl took over the baby room and tossed the kids into the hall.  They lived on the floor by our bed for months while we figured out a new plan.  We then bought bunkbeds and moved the boys into the room across the hall, living with their oldest brother.  They've been there for years now, but this has not been easy.  All last year while he was studying for the MCAT and doing his entire degree, he had to work around these younger brothers.  Not a walk in the park.  I have to say, he was pretty tolerant.  He loves telling his friends at work that he shares a bedroom with a 8 and 10 year old.  It's always pretty endearing to be honest.

Meanwhile, my middle son, who lives in the loft, was feeling kind of cramped up in his room.  There was really nowhere to move him.  As we walked around the house, as usual, the Lord opened our eyes.  We went into the mudroom where I housed all our clothes and we suddenly saw it as a potential bedroom.  We even started to view it as a potential in-law suite down the road.  Within a few weeks, the plan began.  We initially thought it could be for my 14 year old, but then we asked him to be patient and we decided we would let the 21 year old have it for at least a year while he studies again for the MCAT (round 2) and finishes up his 4th year.  We haven't told him yet.  He thinks we're building it for someone else, but we're going to surprise him when it's done and tell him that he gets it.  

So last weekend we ripped out part of the old floor and this weekend we leveled it, prepping for new flooring.  Then we'll paint and move him in.  Where will I put all my books that I had in there?  Where will I put all the clothes I had in there?  I moved all my books to crates in my room.  Surprisingly, they don't fit too badly.  And all the other crates went into the loft room, which again, shockingly, don't look too out of place.  The funnier part is, that a couple drawers, are even in the kitchen, which has to be the funniest, but again, no one seems to notice.  

As relationships with my kids seem to be progressing and moving in the right direction, everyone is vying for the bedrooms of kids who move out one day....pretty funny.  I'm trying to figure out how we can speed this up!

Getting this bedroom done is HUGE for me.  It always feels like an answer to prayer and it reminds me of how we'll ultimately get everything done on our list.  As I wrote last week, it can be very overwhelming, but it just has to be one thing at a time.  Deuteronomy 3 was a great help to me as I thought about the high walls and fortified cities.  I went back and read it again with the kids.  Even more amazing truths jumped out at me....

It began with this simple phrase, "Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan...."  That's what happens every day - we turn.  We turn from one day to the next, from a Sunday to a Monday, from one week to the next, from one season to the next.  And somehow we end up in "Bashan".  When we hit these new days, these new mornings, these new seasons,  Bashan isn't always easy.  The next phrase says it all, "And Og king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people to battle at Edrei."  Isn't that what I've been feeling?  Spring comes and instead of joy at the new beautiful season I feel like Spring is coming out against me to battle.  Or, I wake up ready to see my kids and start a new day, but instead a battle ensues, either waking them up, or them defying me in some way.  

It goes on, though, and thank goodness it does.  I love the next phrase, "BUT the Lord said to me....."  God acknowledges the fact the Israelites are in a place they don't love and speaks to them, "Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand.  And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lives at Heshbon."  That's such an encouragement - He knows the Israelites are afraid.  He knows I can be prone to fear and so He cuts the fear off at the pass and reminds them that He will win the battle.  He also reminded them that He's done it before.  Even as I look to a small thing like this renovation, it feels so big and looming - will we actually finish it?  will I ever have a house that has order?  And then I just have to remember what our house looked like when we moved in....we've come a looooong way.  It will get done eventually, over time.  I just have to look back and see the renovation victories we've had.  Same with all the things on our list - we will get them done, over time, one thing at a time.  It's like He's saying, "You've got this because I've got this."

And that's exactly what happens next.  It says, "So the Lord our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan and all of his people and we struck him down until he had no survivor left."  I kind of consider that like my list of to-dos for the Spring and Summer.  I feel like it will be a battle in a way and that we'll somehow strike down everything on the list until there is no survivor left.  There were 60 cities on their to-do list.  This is kind of a significant number, partly because we have at least 60 things on our list, but also because that is the number RM will hit this June.  I really love how the Bible includes details like that.  It could have said "lots of cities", but it says specifically "60".  I'm praying RM will accomplish his list by June, that we'll be able to look back over his years on earth and say, "Wow!  Look at the battles you've won!"

But, as usual, my favourite phrase in all of this was "Do not fear...."  Today is Monday, Spring is literally less then a week away, and we are turning into a new week and a new season.  "Bashan" is ahead of me, "the king of Og"  and all his people want to meet me in a battle at "Edrei", BUT I don't have to fear.  I just need to look back at last week, last year, yesterday even, and see how He gave the king into our hands.  He can do it again and I know He will.