Today marks the one year anniversary of a life event that
would totally reshape my life and my husband’s life. It isn’t an anniversary that you look forward
to with baited breath. You don’t really
plan a celebration in its honor. If anything
this is the event that turns your tummy upside down and you may even try to
avoid.
September 6, 2014 was a pretty, late summer day. We had spent the day with the kids and had a
night away planned. Our sitter was
coming over with her little sister. The
hubs and I were off to Greensboro for dinner.
No bells, no whistles, nothing out of the ordinary.
We had a great time while we were out. Mind you we just had dinner and did some
window shopping. While we were on our
way home I received a text from our sitter that there was a really bad storm
and our daughter was freaking out. I
told her we were on our way home.
When we got home I paid the sitter and thanked her. I checked on our kids, the two year old fast
asleep in his crib and our daughter happy but drowsy from lots of play time with
her friend R.
I tried to keep my cool as I quickly packed their bags.
See, when I was walking in our home I stopped and noticed
the shadow off the porch did not look like it normally did as it floated into
our yard. Instead of a spray of light and dark from the porch…it was
just predominantly dark. I peeked over
and my husband just said, “Don’t look.
Go pack.”
Adrenaline pumping and the feelings of euphoria were quickly
coming in to play. This couldn’t be real
but this was very real. I have to move, just keep moving, be
positive, and don’t scare the kids.
I stepped outside to call my mom and let her know we needed
her help. Part of me knew when she
picked up the phone I would crumble. Isn’t
that what we, kid with good mamas, do?
We’re all tough and ten feet tall and bullet proof but when you hear
your mom’s voice it is over. You just
let it go and melt.
I couldn’t speak. She
came over and got the kids.
We would spend the next 17 weeks living with her and her
husband in the bedroom of my teenage years.
September 6th will forever be the date that I
learned that God does hear our prayers.
It would be the date in my life where I would realize that when we put
our focus and heart and soul on others He will respond.
Every night prior to that event I said a very simple prayer
over my kids. This is it….
“Dear God, please keep my children healthy and safe all
their days. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
It isn’t poetic or deep.
It is a simple prayer I have prayed for a long time over my
children. It is every mama’s basic hope
for her children. It is the basis for
every day - keep them healthy (no broken bones, illness whether it be strep or
something even more drastic) keep them safe (in school, in the car, on their
devices, when they’re with friends, at youth group, or on the
court/mat/field).
On 9.6.2014 my prayers were answered.
There were four kids in my house that night.
While they played and laughed and ate and vegged out in
front of a television the foundation/basement walls of that house were
rushed by an immense amount of water and collapsed sending the house into a
teetering state of disruption. There
were wires, water, mud, and muck and the weight of a house sitting on a wall
and a corner.
If you are a builder or engineer you would have seen our
house and said (like the engineer who came out) – “You should be thanking your
lucky stars your kids are alive.”
Logically, scientifically, and structurally the house should
have fell on down and or a fire should have started between the frayed and cut
wires and the water.
Neither happened.
You may call it luck or a good day. I call it grace.
Grace covered so much last fall.
I felt grace in day three when the insurance company said
they wouldn’t cover this damage.
When I gave up the fear and stood alone behind my house
staring at the trees, I felt grace. I
learned a long time ago to give up whatever is worrying you to God. Verbally tell Him to take it and make with it
what He will. I did that and he calmed me.
When the timeline for moving the house (yes moving it) and
repairing it was off kilter I felt grace.
It held my tongue and my fist. It kept me busy with other items that needed
my attention.
I felt grace in the hands and feet of all the friends who
helped at the house, with the kids, by raising money to help us, who prayed for
us with no stopping, who made meals and loved on us when we felt like we were
at the end of our ropes.
I felt grace in the ability to keep some things as stable as
possible for the kids with Saturday breakfasts at IHOP, pumpkin patches, trick
or treating, birthday dinners, our annual Christmas tree trip on Thanksgiving,
and so much more.
Grace carried us so that our focus wasn’t really worrying
but making it through.
On December 20, 2014 we moved back into our home. We had a makeshift fake tree last year for
Christmas and a sense of peace even though things had been so awkward for
months. We had a new view on what really
matters in this life – it isn’t anything you can buy. No car, house, dress, purse, book, vacation
can ever be something of true importance.
It is the people and memories you make with those people. It is the ability to be an item of grace in
someone else’s life when the walls are crashing down.
We could have lost a lot more on that night a year ago but
we were spared. Though it was the hardest personal event of my life to deal
with (other than the unexpected loss of my grandmother in 2005) it was an event
that was necessary to teach me how much my God cherishes us and how intricate
we are to each other’s lives, every single day, to be grace in action.
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| Today. |
