I spent most of Valentine's Day in a bad mood. Not just your average, run-of-the-mill bad mood....this was the full on "I hate the entire world and everyone in it" bad mood. I'll spare you the details, but -- bottom line -- I was NOT feelin' the love on Valentine's Day.
Around 5:30 PM I went upstairs to make myself presentable for our family Valentine celebration, and, by God's grace, the Holy Spirit began to prick my conscience and let me know that I really needed to get my act together before dinner. So, I began to think about WHY I was in such a bad mood and then began to pray about those things as I put in my contacts and put on some make-up.
As I prayed, I realized part of the anger was from the constant pressure I feel over the work we need to have done on our house; BIG jobs that we simply cannot afford. Our 25 year old roof needs to be replaced. Our original, 25 year old windows need to be replaced (I was reminded of this as I felt the freezing cold air blowing through our CLOSED, LOCKED window in the bathroom). Our 25 year old HVAC is holding its own, but with predicted wind chills hitting 24 below, I was feeling nervous.
As I was praying, trying to entrust these things to God, Jack came running up the stairs yelling "There is a bubble on the ceiling!" (some of you may have seen the lovely picture on Facebook). Earlier in the day, due to a faulty toilet in Annie's bathroom (read: another home improvement we can't afford), we had a pretty serious flood. We thought is was dealt with, we thought it was cleaned up, until we saw The Bubble. Chaos ensued -- "Geoff! Come quick!" "Susie, get a bucket!" "Annie, go get the step ladder!" Then the horror of puncturing the bubble, catching the water, peeling off the bubbled paint, trying to discern just how bad it was going to get.
Here's the funny part -- at this point I should have come unglued. After an entire day of being angry about everything and at everyone I should have either burst into tears or started screaming profanities. My reaction? I almost started giggling. I so clearly saw God's sense of humor in this. "You want a real crisis? You want something to really worry about? Tired of "What ifs"? Here is a concrete, in-your-face opportunity to trust Me and believe that I will take care of you." And, in that moment, I chose to trust Him. I chose to believe that He will take care of this, that He will provide whatever we need to fix this damage and move on. And then all the anger, all the stress, disappeared as I was reminded that I believe in a God I can trust....all the time.
So -- we cleared the mess off the ceiling, set the bucket on the ladder to catch the drips, went into the dining room and proceeded to have one the best family Valentine's dinners any of us can remember! We sat at the table for almost two hours and had an AMAZING evening together. God is so good. To meet me in my anger, my fear, my disappointment and remind me that He is not only the God of the Universe, He is the God of The Bubble in the Ceiling.
