Well I see that it's been almost three months with no update. Wow and with how Non exciting our life has been I can't understand why that has happened. In case you didn't know we moved to Abilene August 7th and on August 8th the house we were moving into had a fire. Since then we have been picking up the pieces and LEARNING a ton in the process.
Lesson 1- everyone always knows better than you do. I am going to start with the one negative that came out of this just because I think it would make my grandma feel better. I don't know how many people told her "well they should have known better than to leave anything on the stove, I sure wouldn't leave anything on the stove" and I am guessing there are MANY more people out there who thought the exact same thing, but not a single one of "them people" were in our shoes when we moved into a small house with a very narrow kitchen also having the only hallway through the house. Stuff had to go on the counters, table, any spare space on the side and that included a stove. However when you are told your electricity is going to take 3-5 days to be turned on you don't really worry about having stuff on the stove! ( was turned on in 3 to 5 hours) There grandma I hope you feel better! I do totally understand this though. I have caught myself doing it, when I hear someone has died in a car accident and wasn't wearing their seatbelt I think well that could never happen to me- it makes us feel better to hope that we would never do anything that would cause us that much problems.
Lesson 2- Wow are people generous. I thought I was generous- I thought I had the gift of giving but if one of the early lessons I learned was I need to step it up and make sure I am more helpful when people have problems. Within hours we had motel rooms for several days, offers of food clothing, someone purchased a storage unit for us for 2 months for the stuff that didn't burn. Money started coming in, I think I had 25 phone calls the morning after the fire from complete strangers (I had posted on the Abilene MOPS page about the fire) offering us meals or a place to wash the clothes that made it. Not only was that a lesson but WOW does facebook make things happen! I already mentioned the MOPS group but we also found free housing for a month from someone who read about our situation on facebook and knew someone who knew someone who had a house. WOW (not only is facebook a tool but of course it has been AWESOME to see how God has worked through other people! NEVER have we forgotten that part.
Lesson 3- Mice are not easy to drown. Third night in our house we lived in for a month we found (well Kjell found of course I stayed away) mouse in our bathtub. We didn't know what to do so Kjell tried to drown one... I think it took him 45 minutes. so when the next one came in he just caught it and took it outside. Mouse traps were purchased after that and we kept seeing evidence of mice, but only caught one more.
Lesson 4- life without tv and internet is not as bad as it may seem. Wow I got so much reading done in the month we were "on the farm" as we liked to call it. I deepend my relationship with my Lord and Savior by just spending about 2 hours in the Word or in other Bible study books. I mean it was amazing. Why am I so tempted to NOT do that every day???? The kids even did well with it although we did break down and get the only kids movie they had at the small library we were close to Gnomeo and Juliet.
Lesson 5- I do not need all the stuff I have. People ask what we lost in the fire, we lost almost all of our kitchen stuff, and our couch and loveseat, plus a tv. Plus EVERYTHING that was in the house and "survived" had to be cleaned. EVERYTHING. Thankfully we had spend the night before the fire in a hotel so we had some things (Kiah's bag of clothes was not in the house everyone elses was) So here it is nearly two months after the fire already and I am still living with about 2/3 of my life possessions. (more on that in the next lesson) I am starting to believe even that is too much! I still have more clothes than my kids (or I need for that matter - now that they are all back) but I feel it's so much easier to let go of things than it was before the fire. Although I had really felt God calling me to purge even before the move. Some things I did not enjoy living without were my beds, and still missing my dressers. One month with everyone on the floor or air mattress- not my cup of tea just was grateful every day I was not any more pregnant than I was!
Lesson 6 you want your stuff to be handled by people with experience- we had a GREAT company come and take our clothes, shoes, blankets, towels and pillows. EXPERTS at what they do... We got our stuff back the day they said it would come and everything was so well arranged and organized. However all of our other stuff- books, toys, dressers, beds, electronics, well EVERYTHING that is not clothing material went to a brand new company- we had the luck of being the ones who were their "first big fire" so yes still waiting on everything. (minus the beds we did get those back PRAISE the LORD!) Now even though I don't want to bring much more stuff into my house it would be nice if the consider my vacuum destroyed because I would like to know if I needed to buy the one I saw on sale the other day at Target but do not want to get stuck with 2 vacuums. This has been the challenge of the month just waiting and waiting and waiting. This also means having to wait on our insurance check so if you come to my house you will be sitting on a twin sized mattress because we have yet to buy any furniture.
Lesson 7 God is Sovereign- this is the most important lesson and one I feel Kjell and I did a great job of believing even from the beginning. God has a plan for every thing every single event that has happened to us since April 10th and ever single event after that date God has had a plan. It just makes me excited to know that. I have no idea why He called us away from Meade, I have no idea why we had to go through a house fire, I have no idea about most of life, but God is in control and we are right where He wants us. How exciting is that?? I just know God has big things for us. And we are finding friends and Kjell is loving his job and the kids are getting adjusted to city life (Justus wants to eat at Sonic EVERY day for lunch)
Thank you to all who prayed for us and for all who gave of your time talents or money during this time in our life. We have been blown away by the generosity that was shown to us. You all have taught us to give much much more than we have!
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