Hallelujah

Hallelujah! We just attended a performance of The Messiah. With that glorious Hallelujah Chorus still ringing in my ears, we moved into our rental home today! The miracle of running water, a flushing toilet, and a furnace blowing warmth throughout the house astounds my sensibilities!!!

To move from my 3400 sq ft home directly into this little rental (probably 800 sq ft) might have been difficult. So Heavenly Father put me in a 24 ft. trailer for about six weeks. Perspective is everything. We had a late Indian Summer thing still going on when we got there. But He kept us there long enough that the shroud of winter’s snow had fallen, and it was cold, cold, cold– nothing but cold.

I hate to be cold! I figure some ancestor of mine, possibly a pioneer, was so deeply cold for so long, that it altered their DNA so that they were scarred for life about cold. This was passed down to me, so that I have always had a dread of cold beyond reason. For me to be cold is the hardest, most paralyzing thing I could be asked to do.

Naturally, that is what God sent me for a character stretching present. I don’t know how well I passed muster. I started to say cold makes me gloomy, but let’s be honest, when I am cold, I allow myself to be gloomy. I go right down to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs basement, way down into survival. I don’t have much to give anyone.

I tried to be chipper and all that, I really did. Getting our little propane “Dyna Glo” heater turned the corner for me, so that I could continue to face life. We torched that thing for about 15 minutes at night and in the morning, and it would bring up the temperature to a bearable level. Speaking of bears, how I wished I could be a bear, and crawl into my bed and not come out til Spring. Now that’s the perfect way to spend the winter.

Since that wasn’t evidently God’s plan for us, we ran a space heater night and day, rather like a candle in a meat locker. A for effort, but not impressively helpful. Once we had the “Dyna Glo” (which is not recommended for indoor use, but how can a trailer with shot up windows strictly qualify as indoors?), but that explains only using it for fifteen minute power bursts, which punched up the temperature, and then the space heater could hold onto it pretty well. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Dyna Glo.

But now, all of that is history. And that, my friend, is a blessing indeed. My daughters decided “We’re going to get into a house this week.” I told them that we had been searching for a month, and there were no rentals available. We had tried to make a deal with sellers, to lease while their house was on the market, but to no avail. Yet the girls remained adamant, we would find a house. I tried to prepare them for reality, so they wouldn’t lose faith when things just didn’t pan out like they imagined.

My daughters had really been great sports about our trailer adventure, far better than I expected. But I think the fun began to wear off when we began to have water dripping in on us from the snow melting (proof that the space heater was doing some good).

Within a day or so of the girls’ ultimatum, someone  mentioned a list of three contacts who might have rentals. This information came as an afterthought in our conversation (which only Heaven knows why it didn’t occur to them to share this vital information with me sooner).

Of the three people, it was strike one, strike two, and on the third and last swing, we found a man with some trailers available to rent. Since we were already in a trailer, that wasn’t too appealing, so I didn't bother to even call him for a few days. On an impulse, I did call him and he said that he had a small house and a duplex I might want to look at. The duplex was about as appealing as a trailer would have been, but the house, which was opening up the very day we looked at it (in fact the previous renters were still moving out their stuff), was more hopeful. A pillar of light opened up from Heaven, and the Hallelujah chorus swelled, as we walked through the house. It’s small, and it’s old, but there is new carpeting, new linoleum, new paint, new kitchen cabinets and a new sink.

The bathroom has a pink bathtub, which can only mean 1950s or 1960s, but they’ve put up new siding on the walls around the tub, so it’s okay. The house is small, it’s true. But after time in a 24 ft trailer, space has a whole new definition to us. I can totally be here and be happy. Someday our house will sell, and then we’ll be able to move on from this rental. By then, I will be a different person than I was when I left that home. This is being an opportunity to totally redefine myself. I can be what I was, that was good. I can leave behind things about myself that no longer serve me. I can drop off the things that don’t matter. This is as painful as a birth, in many ways. But I look forward to discovering what comes out of the cocoon.

P.S. We were in the house within a week of the girls’ declaration. Thank you, Lord for sending us a Christmas Miracle, and most of all for sending me daughters with faith.

Joy in the Journey