I’ve thought about starting a blog for some time now.  I’d alternate between the excuses of not having enough time (Who does?), not having anything important to say (You may agree with me on that), and not really wanting to open myself up to others (I’m still not sure about that).  But the last 71 days have convinced me that I will never have time unless I make time; that I do have things to say; and that as much as I would like to avoid it, I do need to open up to others.  So here goes…

Why day 71?

Seventy-one days ago what we thought was a small leak from our air conditioner became a full-scale, water-in-every-room flood.  That was the day that the guys from ServiceMaster came and tore out flooring in almost every room and set up twelve industrial fans for us to live with for the next 5 days.

Seventy-one days of concrete floors for nearly half the house.  Over two months of waiting for our insurance company to get all their ducks in a row.  Two months of: “why should I vacuum my room when only part of it still has carpet?”  It’s always there right in front of me distracting me from the daily chores that need to be done.  And I don’t even want to talk about all the hours I’ve spent looking at carpet and flooring, figuring costs, and trying to decide if we should go ahead and do some of the work ourselves while the insurance company decides whether to readjust their adjustment.

The flood was a reminder of how quickly our “normal” can change. I’d love to say that I’ve been content through it all (I haven’t), that we’ve bonded as a family over this (we did at first, less so now that it’s become our new “normal”), that we’ve happily gotten rid of all the clutter in our home (some of it is gone, not all of it was parted with happily) and that we’ve seen God’s hand guiding us through it all.  All I can really say is that God has been with us through every moment of the last 71 days whether we have recognized it or not.  Does God have some big lesson that He wants me to learn from all of this?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that God is good.  He loves us and everything that He gives us is for our benefit. Everything He takes away is also for our benefit.  Every trial (however minor) we experience is for His glory.

We’ve dealt with a lot in these last 71 days.  The flood was really minor compared to some other things that have happened since then. And yes, God is still good.