Musings from the Threshold

Monthly Archives: October 2008

Update

I haven’t posted for a couple of days, so I thought I’d take a minute to do that.

Work on the garage has been held up a bit.  The beam in the center of the garage is sagging and other work has been interuppted while they get a support in for that.  We are hoping to have some friends come and help us with construction and moving tomorrow – please be praying if you think of it!
Mama and I (and a couple of friends here and there) have gotten quite a lot packed this week.  There is still plenty to do, but it will all happen in God’s timing.
Jonathan is meeting our friend and landlord at the store in the morning to pick up the new door, window, and sheetrock, so tomorrow should be a very productive day!

New House Work Day 2

Jonathan and I had to go into St. Louis for an appointment today, so we didn’t get a lot done on the house. But Papa and the kids got a lot done!

I forgot to get a picture of the opening for the new door, but here’s Papa starting to get the framing in:

And they got out all the drywall that needed to be removed from the walls. And we were pleasantly surprised to find good insulation back there! I guess with the two garage doors, the insulation can’t be that effective.  I’m sure it will be much warmer with a real wall.

The garage door on the left will have a large window in it.


New House – workday 1

Papa and Mama got into town last night, and today after several hours at other tasks (Jonathan and Papa doing installs, Mama and I packing), we all headed over to the new house to work.

The big project on the new house is that we are finishing the double car garage. It will be a multipurpose space, and will include our bedroom, office, and “den.” We are tearing it out to the studs, re-working the wiring, adding insulation, drywalling, painting (including the floor, which is concrete), etc. We are also adding a window or two and a new door to the outside. Lots of work, and we hope to have the bulk of it done this week (probably excluding the mudding of the drywall and the painting of the walls).

I missed getting pictures of the garage before the guys got started. The pegboard walls of the garage were covered in hooks and containers. An amazing assortment of screw, nails, fishing equipment, shelves, etc, etc. Today’s work of several hours consisted of stripping the garage walls of all their “stuff.”

Here are some of the earliest pictures I took today (they had almost half of the stuff taken care of by this point):


And at the end of the night:



Yay for Jonathan and Papa, and for the Blessings, who helped out quite a lot.
And yay for Mama who helped me get lots of stuff packed and unpacked today!

More pictures of the new house

We had a wonderful time yesterday evening with our friends from whom we will be renting our new house.  I forgot to get a picture of all of them together, so I’ll have to do that this next weekend (they’re in town for a little while).

Here are some more pictures, mostly of the house.  They have captions, but I don’t know if they show up in the slideshow (they do show up on the Picasa page).

Blessings

I think y’all must be praying for me!

Last night, while I spent 15 minutes (using the timer!) sitting on my floor sorting through some things, I found some verses and such that I have printed out over the years and have had posted around to remind me of important truths. The funny thing was, they were in a box full of baby books and pictures. What a “co-incidence” that they were in the one box of stuff that I sorted yesterday (one box because I’m being a good girl, you know).

Some highlights:

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
… God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong…
Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
I Cor. 1.25, 27, 31

The present circumstance, which presses so hard against you (if surrendered to Christ) is the best shaped tool in the Father’s hand to chisel you for eternity. TRUST HIM, THEN. Do not push away the instrument lest you lose its work.
Mrs. Charles E Cowman, Streams in the Desert

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” … I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me … for when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Cor. 12.9,10

Mary was listening to the Lord’s word, seated at His feet.
Martha was distracted with all her preparations.
But the Lord answered and said to her,
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only a few things are necessary,
really only one,
for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10.39-42

Be Still

I’m here to come clean and to ask for your prayers.

I am NOT being still. Either figuratively or spiritually. And I must, I really must. But I’m not. I’m twitchy beyond expression.

(Fair Warning: if you’re a man, or if you don’t want to hear about feminine issues, you might want to stop reading here and and just pray for me. I’m not going to be graphic, but my struggle relates to feminine things, and you might want to skip this blog.)

Here’s the deal. Two weeks ago yesterday, I underwent outpatient surgery (general anesthesia) to remove a cervical polyp. It was large, and believed to be rooted at the back of the cervical canal, so the planned procedure was similar to a D&C. Basically, they used rods of graduated size to manually dilate the cervix sufficiently to get to the polyp and remove it at the base. It turns out the that the polyp was rooted just inside in the uterus, not in the cervical canal, so the surgery was a bit more involved than expected, but all went well. Pathology reports were all clear, as well.

After a surgery like this, you’re expected to have some bleeding for several days. It can also trigger your cycle to speed up, especially if done close to the expected time for menses. This happened in my case, and I expected to be done with the whole business by about last Thursday.

Well, I’m not done. Still. And it’s not because there’s anything terribly wrong with me. It’s because I just can’t be still. I’ve talked to the dr (via the nurse), and it all comes down to me doing more than I should.

Hello?? We’re moving next week! I am so not ready (packing wise) for this move. I have so much to do.

If I could go back and have a “re-do”:
~ I would see if waiting a month or so would have been a problem.
~ I would grill the nurse and doctor to get a more clear idea of what recovery would be like. I think they did their best to communicate that to me, but either they weren’t emphatic enough, or I wasn’t listening. The later is likely.
~ I would humble myself and ask for a week of meals from my church family. Two people brought a meal that first week, but the burden of cooking hasn’t helped at all.

So, that covers the “if… then…” statements. Those are mostly for your benefit, dear reader. Remember them if ever you are up for surgery.

“If…Then…” does not, however, help me. I need to find a way to deal with the circumstances in which I am currently being given the opportunity to glorify God.

Last night, as we lay in bed, I appealed to Jonathan for help. I seem to not have the appropriate “gear” for going the right speed at this time. After I’d expressed my frustration with trying to not do too much and consistently failing (and whining about how much I need to do…), my beloved husband informed me that I was missing the point. I guess he was right, because I had to ask him to tell me what the point was!!

The point is (I hear) – I’m supposed to be resting and letting my body heal. I’m supposed to be mostly off my feet. And if I don’t give my body the time it needs to heal, not only will this infernal bleeding drag on indefinitely, but I could hurt myself long-term.

Oh.

And here we are, back to faith.
Back to “Be still and know that I am God.”

Because, humanly speaking, I cannot sit around and let my body heal like it needs to. I have a family of 9 to pack and move. Starting next weekend. And there is much to do.

But I must Be Still.
My God is big enough to take care of the details of our moving.
He loves me enough to not want this not to be a miserable time for me.
And His grace is sufficient.

Please pray that I will reach up with both hands and accept that grace. That by His divine power, I will Be Still. That I will know, not only in the core of my being, but in all my extremities, that He is God.

Thanks.

Double Date!

We were blessed to go see Fireproof on Oct. 7 with our friends Alan and Sue.  There were plans to meet for supper, which fell through due to a sick babysitter.  Jonathan and I went ahead and went to eat and then to the movie.  And a few minutes before the movie started, in walked Alan and Sue!  Yay!  They had managed to line up another babysitter at the last minute.

After the movie, which was amazing, we headed over to Applebee’s for some coffee, tea, and visiting.  Aren’t we sweet?


Good idea for Christmas…

I’m mulling over this idea from Malia Russell at homemaking911.com

Here’s the intro:
Several years ago I heard about an easy way to narrow down Christmas gifts for children. Instead of buying a bunch of toys or other clutter, each child receives the following:
Something to Read
Something to Wear
Something to Play
Something to Share.

She goes on to give some thoughts on how to implement this. Like – if four gifts per child is still too many gifts for your budget, considering asking people you know will be buying gifts for your children to choose a category (or two). And – if they’d like to spend more, ask them to contribute to a savings/investment of some sort for the children.

Any thoughts? I like the idea, but would welcome some more practical implementation ideas.