Blog post #18

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most patient person in the world. I tend to be a go-getter, if things don’t happen quickly, I’ll go make it happen.

I know the Lord is teaching me to stop and wait for him to give me everything I want and more. In jumping ahead, I miss out on the good things and the surprises he has in store.

I have been given gifts that I would’ve probably never gotten for myself, or at least not for a long time. Let me back up.

I’ve always wanted a matching bedroom set. When Dave and I got married, we had a hodgepodge of furniture that was given to each of us by our parents. We had a bed, but no bedframe, mismatched dressers, goofy lamps, a bed stand, even a love seat to complete the room. The thought of spending money on a good bedroom set was in the back of my mind, but since guests don’t usually go into your bedroom, I just put it into the file of “someday.”

When my Aunt Evelyn passed away suddenly my cousin, Janet, was given the daunting task of going through her things and divvying up who gets what and what should we do with this? I had no idea we would be a part of her answer. My Mom and Dad took a trip over the mountain to help her move some things and my dad called and asked if we would like to have Aunt Evelyn’s bedroom set. I said sure, not even knowing what it looked like. Things were loaded up in a borrowed horse trailer and Mom and Dad delivered our new bedroom set. It is high quality and very nice. Thank you, Janet, Mom and Dad. Oh, and God provided when we didn’t even ask.

Since we’ve been doing our project, we’ve been living in a pull trailer, which probably has less than 300 square feet to live in. The winter was a little difficult, but I dreaded the summer more. I don’t deal with heat very well. I made up my mind I was going to be ok. I’d just crank up the generator to run the A.C. if I really needed to.

In the meantime, I had to have emergency gall-bladder surgery. I was helpless as far as starting the generator, it had to be pull started and I didn’t have the strength after my surgery. Family and neighbors stopped by to help me most days, and on the days when they couldn’t come, I would take my son’s dog to the park, sit and read and wait for Dave to get off work. Eventually he got the electric starter charged up and then I could do it myself.

A few weeks after that, the generator stopped working all together. It would run, but no electricity would come out. Our son and his roommate took it to a repair shop they knew of for us and we waited. We called after two days, then four, then it turned into a week and they hadn’t even had a chance to look at it. Good thing, because it was still under warrantee and there was only one place in town that was authorized to work on it.

They picked it back up and left it in their garage and we found the dealer to work on it. I delivered it with no problems and they promised me they would have answer.

In the meantime, my sister and her husband gave us a swamp cooler that saved my sizzling bacon. We had started looking at small window mount coolers just to get us through… Another answer. The generator was eventually fixed after about six weeks. We survived and since it was still under warrantee, it was all free.

Since my son was in middle school, my hubby and I have dreamed about taking a cruise to Alaska, but again, we put that way down on our priority list. Like maybe, someday, probably never. With the building of the house, breakdown of equipment, my expensive surgery without insurance, hubby starting another business, well you get the picture.  We really needed to have a get-away, but it had to be fairly close and not too expensive.

I was looking at Pinterest and decided the Albuquerque balloon festival might be just what we needed. We could stop in Taos, New Mexico and check out Earthship Biotecture and be inspired. Hubby agreed and put in for what little time off he had.

I was on the phone with my son and told him about our plans, there was a long pause on his end of the line. He told me, “Mom, that’s not a vacation.”

I just laughed and told him, “Well that’s all we can swing this time.”

A few days later, my son called and told me to grab my passport, pack warm and get ready for a trip of a lifetime. No questions, no turning it down, just say yes. I cried, not even knowing where we were headed.

I called him the next day and asked for more specific information since I would have to know where we were going if I was to apply for a passport. He reluctantly told me he’d paid for my hubby and I to go on an Alaskan cruise. I cried again…How awesome is God, our son and the way things work out.

We had a fantastic trip, the weather was beautiful; no rain, sunshine, happiness, whales, glaciers, food, fun. I didn’t even have much trouble with my stomach, which could’ve been bad since we were on a floating food buffet.

It did take us about 24 hours to settle down and relax. Dave loves to go, go, go, and he wanted to explore every nook and cranny on the ship within the first 6 hours on board. There was only one place we never got to and I’m sad about that, the chapel. They had a group there for a memorial when we were going to check it out.

I was a little worried, after living in such luxury I might find it hard to come back to the dry, arid desert and the small camper we live in. What was amazing was I never felt resentful, sad or upset that we live like we do. I was happy to be home in our cozy little camper and welcomed October and the beautiful fall colors with open arms.

The month of November brings more work for me than ever. I am doing NaNoWriMo again, I released my 6^th book, am getting ready to publish the prequel novella I wrote this summer, and I volunteered to make the turkey for Thanksgiving at my folks’ house.

I am looking back at this year, pausing and thanking God for all of his abundant blessings. Some we don’t even remember we wanted. I am still learning, every day, every minute that God is in charge, he loves me and wants to give me the best life I can have.

So in this season, pause, think about all you have, and with a grateful heart just say thank you.

“Be still and know I am God.” Psalm 46:10