For posterity, I just have to record the amazingly awful week we had last week. I should say awful in the sense of circumstances. God miraculously sustained us through it so that even though we were tired and worn out we were not crushed or beaten down. As I typed that it reminded me of 2 Corinthians 4: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;...struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." (vv. 8-10) I want to be careful to acknowledge God's grace and kindness to us in the midst of "one thing after another" so that we will remember this crazy week not as a disaster, but as the opportunity it was to grow closer as a family, experience the love of fellow believers, learn to better serve each other, and even get some needed work done on the house. Now, on with the story....
Monday was the day Benjamin was diagnosed with pinkeye and other misc. infections so our week started with a sick baby and all the extra love and care that goes into that scenario. That night was the first of 2 nights of recording for our church's Christmas album. As much as I hated to miss it, I stayed home with Benjamin while Seth went to the recording. (We figured they needed his bass voice more than my alto. It's a typical church choir with twice as many women as men!) It was a late night for both of us.
Tuesday Seth began to get sick (sore throat, nasty cough, stuffy head, feeling generally "blah.") Nevertheless, he pressed through his work day, recorded his *SOLO* for the album, and rejoined the choir for recording that night. Benjamin was well enough to stay with a babysitter, so I was also able to go to the recording that evening. Another late night, although we finished a bit early. By the time we got home Seth was feeling really badly. We decided Wednesday would have to be a "sick day" for him to recover.
So Wednesday morning I got up, got Benjamin and myself fed, dressed, and ready for my doctor's appointment. Oh yes, I already told this story.... This is the flat tire story. In summary, Seth's "sick day" was fully consumed with tire-related events, ultimately leading to the mandatory replacement of our 2 back tires.
Thursday Seth was feeling worse than ever so we decided to try the "sick day" thing again. This time he was able to get a decent amount of extra rest and began to recover. Unfortunately by Thursday afternoon I was wondering if I was beginning to come down with the bug. Seth planned to return to work Friday, but was still feeling hot and dizzy if he was up for too long so we ended up dragging around the house, as a family, for most of the day.
Friday night the excitement began.... Seth and I had just finished a game of Dominos. It had been raining all day, during the later evening hours it had been pouring. Seth looked out our back door and found that the creek behind our house had overflowed to the point where the water had come up to our back step and was about an inch from overtaking it and flowing right into the kitchen. (When he opened the back door you could hear the rushing river.) Upon further exploration, we discovered that our house was completely surrounded by water. The front step (and thus the front door and living room within) was in equal danger of being overtaken by the torrent. In fact, the water was flowing through the crawl space underneath the house. Of even more immediate concern was the fact that our Rubbermaid shed, containing all our Christmas
decorations, off-season clothes, Benjamin's wardrobe for the previous and next year, camping equipment, etc. was already submerged in 6 or more inches of water. We began to panic as we wondered how much longer it would rain and what that would mean for our little house. We even thought about evacuating, but by the time we gathered accurate information on the weather and tried several means to determine our actual danger the water had begun to receed. Relieved, we were finally able to abandon our watch and crawl into bed around 3:00am.
Saturday morning we started out just after breakfast to survey the damage in the shed. As we
unloaded it we were pleasantly surprised to find that we had been smarter than we remembered. A consistent "foundation" of plastic storage totes lined most of the floor space in the shed and kept most of our possessions out of the water. We did lose most of a box of old "memories" (journals, special cards and letters), which was a bit sad, but we were able to salvage some of the more important items. The biggest relief, to me, was that none of our Christmas decorations were ruined, despite the waterlogged cardboard box on the bottom of the stack. Plastic bags and styrofoam packing had kept everything dry!
Sometime mid-Saturday we were alerted that the storms weren't over. In fact, we were expected to get as much as 6 more inches of rain before Sunday morning. We knew the saturated ground wouldn't absorb much more and that the creek would rise even faster if we received that much more rain. So we began to prepare our house for flooding. It was a whirlwind morning and afternoon as we ran around, in our exhausted stupor, trying to discern priorities and save the greatest number of our possessions as possible. (As little as we are attached to our scraps of furniture and "budget decor" we certainly can't afford to replace any of it at this point!) By late Saturday afternoon all the furniture was up on blocks and everything
was up off the floor (covering the bed, couch, tables, chairs, even filling Benjamin's crib). We decided to take my Dad up on his offer to let us use some of his hotel "points" to evacuate to a nearby hotel. Thankfully, although somewhat anticlimactically, the final "big storm" never came. Our house was safe and dry.
Sunday we spent the afternoon and evening at a friend's house. By this time Benjamin was feeling more than a little unsettled from all the chaos and confusion so I spent the afternoon playing with him and trying to instill some structure back into his life while Seth went back to the house to begin putting it all back together. We decided it was a good opportunity (almost equal to moving!) to get some thorough vacuuming and cleaning done, so it was a big project. He got Benjamin's room back to order Sunday afternoon. We spent the night with our friends Sunday night.
Monday we worked hard all day long to get things put back together. By Monday night things were looking much better! There were a couple of projects on our to-do list that just made sense to tackle while things were torn apart, so we weren't able to return to full normality until about Wednesday.
Needless to say, this saga took up much time and energy that Seth, especially, didn't really have to spare. His schedule is already so packed with working nearly full time and a difficult homework load. Much of that was neglected, by necessity, while we dealt with these issues. So he is still trying to get back on his feet, catching up on work and homework, as well as continuing to deal with the busyness of life. We would appreciate your prayers for him as he tries to balance this pressure.
The crowning detail to the story is rather poetic, actually. Benjamin is sick again, with a touch of pinkeye and a bacterial infection (sound familiar?), which I seem to have come down with last night. Sigh. Life is never dull.
Benjamin really enjoyed trying out a rocking horse. He loved leaning back and forth, making it move on his own. As you can see from the picture, it was just his size. We also had a good time giving Benjamin his first taste of an ATV (all-terrain vehicle). The battery in it was mostly dead, so we had to use "Daddy Power" (which was fine since Daddy had to steer anyway). We went round and round the area several times, and Benjamin enjoyed looking at the
scenery on the back of a big, bad machine.
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