Sometimes it’s a wonderful blessing, others times the answers bite you in the hiney!
Let’s start with the hiney biting. Michael’s work load was at a bit of a standstill for a week or two. There just wasn’t much for him to do. This left him with plenty of time to do things related to the house, but it made us worry a bit. With the new baby coming we had concerns over medical expenses since you can lose your health insurance if you do not work a certain number of hours. We prayed that “our” employers would prosper in their businesses so that we could have reliable employment to provide for our needs. We should have prayed only that Michael’s employer would have an increase in business, which he has. Michael’s work load has increased. He has plenty to do to keep him busy for a number of weeks.
The bite in the hiney is in what has happened at my places of employment. Both of the pharmacies at which I work have had a big increase in workload. We are in the middle of a flu epidemic in our area and cold and flu prescriptions have been flying into and out of our stores. The load has been felt much more at Target because we have been short staffed and have new people who aren’t fully trained yet (including myself). I come home from that job feeling like I’ve been beat up most days. I almost always need a shower because I’ve been working hard enough to actually sweat. Most of you have been to a pharmacy - you know pharmacists are on their feet for anywhere from 8 to 12 hours at a time, tiring enough in and of itself, but in general, we don’t move around enough to sweat. It took me a couple of weeks to realize that as stressed as I was, I had asked for it. I had prayed repeatedly that my employers (as well as Michael’s) would prosper and have an increase in customers. Let this be a lesson to you all to think carefully about what you pray for!
On the upside, in the past week, as those who have read my previous blog will know, we’ve been feeling a good deal of stress regarding the details of the building of our new home. Many nights I am on the verge of tears and beyond, just worrying about how things are going to work out. One of our worries has been the amount of the loan we have been able to get not being enough to cover the expenses of building the house. I distinctly remember praying for something to happen to make things better just last week. I told the Lord we were doing everything we could possibly do to pay for the house ourselves. We’re both working full-time (which truth be told, I should not be doing) and trying to make it work on our own, but we just didn’t quite have enough to finish the job. Our bank loan officer had suggested early on that we have a second appraisal done after the construction of the house was underway. We had this done last week. (The appraiser was the gentleman Michael met at the house the day he got stuck - the same man who pulled him out.) It just so happened that a piece of property on the same road we will be living on sold on our anniversary, Feb. 22nd. The property was 105 acres with a 3-year old house on it. A really good comparable property for ours (acreage and new house wise). It sold for $600,000. What are the chances that a really, really good comp sale should happen right when our house was being reappraised? Right when we had our last opportunity to get the money we needed? Our property value came in much higher than the original appraisal and right at the level we need to complete the work (pending some paper work) without dipping into our savings. We won’t have to hunt animals for skins for clothing after all!!
Other good things:
Today was a much better day all around. In addition to the great news about the loan, we also received the faucet and shower fixtures we ordered, we are getting back $150 credit from Michael’s chiropractic appointments and a lot of house decisions have been made and are behind us. We also met with an accountant to start our taxes. We should get the result tomorrow and we are hoping for a good refund to help with costs. There is still a lot of stress and frustration to come, but at least a few pounds of it have slid off our shoulders.
Remember God has eveything already planned out. It can be very frustrating but if you remember that we worry about the tomorrows and God already knows what tomorrow is going to be. He gives us what we need at the time we need it. Not when we think we need to know. Don’t you know he is up there laughing and saying you don’t need to know today,lol.
Also, God love for us to practice patients. He gives us plenty of oppertunities to practice. The one lesson we never seem to learn. lol.
Remember, this to shall pass. There will be the day when all of this will be behind you and you will be in your home and all of this will be forgotten. Well maybe not forgotten, but you will be thinking it was rough but well worth it.
Do what you have to for the day and know that God takes care of the tomorrows.
Love you all and know that we out here are walking this with you. Your blogs make us feel like we are going through this with you so you are not alone.