Devotions

My first memory as a little carnival-glass teacup

was at a fair. I could hear the noises of the merry-go-round,

the men calling out to potential game players/money spenders,

and excited children laughing and calling out to each other.

Being tiny, I couldn’t see much of these things.

I sat by glasses and cups much bigger than me.

I could hear the clink of the coins as they hit their sides.

“Ouch that hurt! Don’t throw them so hard! Oh, that one tickled!”

Then I saw him. The red-headed kid about twelve years old.

He tossed a few nickels then bingo! It went inside me,

rolled around and tickled me, until it rested on the bottom.

I was snatched up and the boy they called Jim took me home.

I sat in a cozy home on the shelf for many years,

watching Jim’s large rowdy family. Then one day I turned up

at his daughter’s home.  I could tell she liked me a lot.

I sat on her favorites shelf for years watching her write.

But one day, sadly, she packed me up in a cardboard box.

Someone was moving in and she needed space.

So I sat for years in the dark until the flood came.

I thought I’d drown in the cold water, but the flood abated.

I was put in a bag, in a big truck and hauled off to be sorted out

with thousands of other moldy items in large bags.

I was eighty-five years old, stashed away in a stinky mess.

I knew she was worried and I wondered if she’d ever find me.

And then one day I was put in another box.

I took the long ride back over the mountain.

All of a sudden, the box opened and there she was

with a relieved look on her face.

Now I sit happily on her office shelf

watching her write, paint,

and play the ukulele. Good thing

I’m old and can’t hear well.

Through the Flood

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. Isaiah 43:2

Anyone who has had their home destroyed by flood or fire knows what a heart-breaking mess that can be. My husband and I had it happen to us on a small scale. We went away on vacation to the San Juan Islands up by the state of Washington. We shared a rental with our grown son and daughter and met my four sisters and their families there. We had a wonderful time. But in the middle of it, we learned that a pipe broke in our house.

I usually give a key to my house to someone when I’m gone, but this time I forgot. Our friend who worked for the city had the water turned off and he thought the break might be outside since the flood water was going into the street. There was nothing I could do but enjoy the rest of our vacation.

But when we got back, we realized that it was a much bigger problem than we thought. It wasn’t an outdoor pipe. The water hose behind the washer sprung a leak and half of our house was flooded and would need remodeled. The crawl space which held our storage held standing water. The water had gone in and spilled out on the street from there.

My husband who was disabled went down to Arizona with our kids and I was left to deal with the mess. Since the house needed new carpet and paint, anyway, I wasn’t too terribly upset and decided to redo the whole house. It took a couple months before the house was good enough to retrieve my husband and then it took almost a year to complete the project. In a way, the flood was a blessing because otherwise I may have never gotten to the remodeling or the cleaning up of the storage space.

 It was a long difficult process of lining people up to do their jobs, buying new appliances and repainting. I did all the painting on the inside, except my nephew helped me with the two front rooms and the hallway. But it was those items in the storage space that caused me grief. Some of the things were miraculously spared, like all my journals. But others like my school yearbooks, my kids’ first-year books, and many other priceless items were ruined.

I was missing a box of knickknacks that was valuable to me. It was in storage to make room for a man with developmental disabilities to live with us for ten years. The little carnival-glass tea cup meant a lot to me, because my dad had won it at the fair when he was 12. It’s now 86 years old. We had a stack of 40 or 50 garbage bags full of stuff by the side of our house which I called Mount Moldy, plus several boxes that the clean-up crew had saved out, which I had to go through them all one by one. In one of the boxes, I found the cup, the Mountain Man and other treasures. I was so relieved to see them. They were just things, but they had a lot of sentimental value. I thanked God for seeing fit for me to keep some of them.  

It wasn’t, by any means, the first hardship the Lord had brought me through. What a precious gift believers have to know He is there to help and hear our prayers through trying times. And after it was finished, I was grateful for the clean crawl space, the new paint and carpet and the new washer, dryer and heater. God uses our trials to do a restoration in us when we come to Him. He may have to knock out a few walls, replace the old with the new and give our souls a fresh coat of paint. But in the end, it’s worth it.

Prayer: Lord, thank You for being with us through thick and thin. As it takes time to restore a house it takes time to restore our souls. Help us yield to Your loving hand and be patient with the process.

Recommended Reading: Isaiah 1:16-20, Romans 12:1-2