Pop. Hiss. For some reason, I woke up at 4:00 am on Sunday just in time to hear these muted sounds. The hissing continued, sounding kind of like the heater fan that goes on in our kitchen, but slightly different. I lay in bed for several minutes, wondering what it was and if I should be concerned. Finally, I got up and followed the sound down the stairs. I stepped into several inches of water in our basement and soon discovered that a pipe connection in our downstairs bathroom had come apart and was spraying water straight up at the ceiling. Dean and I were soon up mopping and drying and spreading every available towel on the floor in an effort to keep the damage to a minimum. Later on that morning at a more civilised hour, we borrowed a water vacuum from friends and gathered the heaters and dehumidifiers to speed up the drying. It is slow going, but things are getting dryer. It deflates me to see all the effort I put into fixing up that basement last summer be chipped away bit by bit. I spent weeks patching cracks and sanding and repainting pretty much the whole thing and touching up baseboards and ceilings and decorating. What will be the end of this whole house saga? I just don't know. As you might suppose, I was pretty discouraged last night at church. At the end we broke into small groups and prayed for each other. I tossed my discouragement before God to see what he would do with it. The words that came back to me were, "Nothing has changed, except your circumstances."
Nothing has changed. God is still in charge. Jesus still loves me. Dean is still my constant companion. Friends still stick with me. I still live and breathe and eat and sleep and write and play and work, most of the time with joy and contentment. There is still a promise that God will take good care of me and bring glory, His glory, to shine on everything I commit to him.
God, help me focus more on the "nothing" and less on the "circumstances."
This is a picture of the Atlantic Ocean where it is supposed to be...outside. Taken in Cuba in February 2008.
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