The Story of Our Week (Oh, boy, It's a Long One)

Last week did in fact turn out to be a trying week.

On Saturday I saw that the maintenance required light that had been blinking in my van for three months had suddenly changed from blinking to solid. This was not a good sign. I had been supposed to take it in for an oil change the week that I was sick, and then we had VBS every morning, and then the weekend, so I had to trust my children to ride in a vehicle that I feared, for about five seconds, might not be safe. Michael had commented that the engine sounded different and that it seemed to lose power as he was driving only days before.

Took the van in to the shop. I would have stayed and waited for the oil change if I didn't think there was a good chance something else would have to be repaired. Got a ride home from the shop with one of their drivers and practiced my question-asking skills all three miles. It wasn't difficult as he was the kind of man who takes a question and runs with it. Nice guy.

They were able to fix it for us that day, but it cost about two-hundred dollars more than I had hoped to pay for a repair.

That evening around dinner time we failed to notice that our yellow labrador was needing to go out. Parker, my four year old, was the first to notice her peeing on the rug in the back room, which is also our laundry room. She had never had an accident in the house before. Luckily our sometimes daytime house guest was there, and he was able to tell us what to do to clean it up. After we mopped up as much as we could with towels, he poured baking soda all over the wet area to wick up the moisture. This was scraped and swept, and in the morning the residue was dry enough to clean up with the vacuum cleaner.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday occurred without either positive development business-wise, or negative incident. A good friend brought us dinner. Michael and I got a couple of hours out of the house to attend a short seminar. The children and I met my sister at CHOM and at the public library.

Then Friday. Ah, Friday.

Because I had felt pretty crummy all week, and our laundry room was being used for test-taking by our guest, the laundry had been piling up. In fact I hadn't even folded towels from the weekend before. As Michael left the house for play testing with Jim and errands, I finally put on a load of clothes and got the children ready to go outside.

We go outside. I see an unaccountable puddle of water streaming from the basement. It looks like it has soap in it. I walk into the basement to investigate, noticing that a lot of the moisture seems to be originating around the water heater, but there's nothing wrong with the water heater. Next thing I know, a rush of water falls from the raw ceiling above the heater. I run upstairs to see what's going on, only to find a stream of water growing out from underneath the washing machine, the wooden floor boards becoming warped around the edges. Since the load of laundry in the machine is in its final cycle, I have no choice but to let it run, even as I have a pretty good idea of what is going on below.

Michael's gone. The children are outside alone. A friend of mine is coming in a couple of hours to cut my hair.

I could drag this out and give you all the details, but the main thing that happened in the hours before my friend got there and Michael made it home from errands was that a $600 car repair that didn't bother me at the beginning of the week suddenly became a frighteningly large expense, as I contemplated the possibility of an even more expensive plumbing charge. For a moment I envisioned the floor collapsing and the siding falling off the back of the house. For a moment I couldn't help but think about the disparity between our income and expenses for the month. We're fine, but it really was a rough couple of hours alone in the house with two tired, and I do mean tired, children.

On Saturday I washed all of our dishes by hand (with help) because I was afraid that running the dishwasher would overload the plumbing. On Saturday Isaac's diaper leaked into my bed, wetting our one and only mattress pad, making the laundry situation all the more urgent. On Saturday Michael worked on the plumbing, and worked on the plumbing, and worked on the plumbing, with the benefit of some good advice from our sometimes house guest, but the problem wasn't immediately fixed. It wasn't a surprise that a plumbing issue would require a lot of trial and error, but it was still disheartening.

More help, this time from my Dad, after which the problem was solved without our having to call in the professionals, and without my having to leave the house to do laundry or grocery shopping or anything.

This was the week that I was dreading, and it turned out to contain things I never would have imagined in advance. I was glad on Saturday that it seemed to be over.

On Friday for a time I wondered why God wasn't providing for us in a more satisfying way. I wondered why the business possibilities that had come up at the beginning of the month hadn't developed into much of anything. I wondered why I had to finally get upset about the cost of the car when I had handled it so well earlier in the week.

On Saturday I remembered that we're supposed to thank God for trials. And I figured something out about the way I was supposed to pray while we wait for our financial situation to change. Maybe this is what I ought to be saying to Him (God): I know that You could provide us with an adequate stream of income any time You want. For all I know You could be planning to solve all of our employment problems tomorrow. Until You do, please just stretch what money we have and in the meantime teach me the lesson that You can be trusted with all our desires and needs.

It's a lesson I've been working on, and I have plenty of ideas about what faith and trust mean in terms of our relationship with God, that lovely old loaded term I'm also trying to cope with.

And then I started to recognize some of the blessings of the week.

My mom came to my house unexpectedly on Sunday night and cut my children's hair after which they got to run around in the sprinklers for half an hour.

A friend who will remain anonymous because I don't know whether he would want me to name him or not brought us dinner one night because I had been sick and because he wanted to do something nice for us. That dinner lasted us for two meals.

The children got a chance to use the computer games at the library because my sister was there with us, which meant that each child had their own adult giving them full attention.

Our sometimes daytime house guest was here when the dog peed on the carpet and was available with good and practical advice when the plumbing went all haywire.

The friend who cut my hair was here when I needed someone to distract me from what could have become a full on panic followed by depression as I described above.

My husband was able to solve the plumbing and problem and my parents were available to help.

We ended Saturday evening in the presence of someone Michael and I both love, who fed us yet again, and who brought the entertainment, leaving fresh vegetables and lemonade, among other things, behind.

In fact it turned out to be a rather good week.

Songs, Reminders, Things That Cannot be Communicated in Any Other Way

Here is a word picture (it isn't really a "picture," but what is it?) from one of my favorite songs ("Time Will Be the Tell") by 100 Portraits that gives me pause.

You can play the Cinic/
Oh, the insults that you could hurl/
Be the King of your opinion/
In your tiny, tiny world/
The church could be your victim/
Cross your arms and criticize/
I hope you will remember/
She is another man's wife/
She is another man's wife.

I've listened to this song today as I've thought about the fact that I once cared passionately about the health of the church (the real church, not simply the institution), the unity of the body, the purity that Christ attributes to its members. I don't care so much for those things as I once did, and consider that the root of this uncaring must be the bitterness that sets in as a result of disillusionment and injury. We are such delicate creatures. In recognizing and accepting our wounding, still we must remember that the church is the Bride of Christ--she is another man's wife.

This is not a concept I fully understand. I once lost respect for a man because of the actions of his wife. I have been critical at times when men have attributed spritual superiority to their wives against my own (admittedly external) assessment. How fortunate it is that we are not called upon to make these judgments, especially considerig I am so judgmental a creature.

Still Slogging My Way Through *Orthodoxy*

I've been reading Chesterton's Orthodoxy since October, and while I've really enjoyed the book, it's taken me about four months to attempt reading the last chapter. I seem to be terminally stuck.

For one thing, this is not a book you can read in gigantic gulps. There have been moments when I've been tempted to read a second chapter after finishing a first, and each and every time this has proven to be a mistake. Too much thinking is required. I'll make it through four or five pages of that second chapter, and then realize that I've no idea what I've just read, and this is rarely a good realization when it's a book you are reading voluntarily. I admit, I didn't understand much of what I read in Eagleton's Literary Theory, but that was a different sort of voluntary reading.

Michael recommends, quite sensibly, that I not choose such high intensity reading just before it's time to go to bed. This is why I never could have made it in graduate school. I've just about decided that I'm not the right kind of intellectual.

Furious with T(uscaloosa) P(ublic) L(ibrary)

I can hardly stand it, and so I thought I might find catharsis by posting my feelings in the matter.

Last week I borrowed three movies from the Public Library. All three films were for Parker's benefit, so that I could see something other than Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie during his waking hours.

Now some of you may not know this about me yet, but I hate fines and interest payments of every sort, mortgage payments excluded. I can't stand them, and as such I always make great effort to get things turned in on time.

This week it just didn't work out. I forgot to return the movies on Tuesday, but I told Michael it would be okay as long as we got them in by opening the next day. One of the movies, which we hadn't watched, didn't get picked up to return, and since we had spent the entire day with our car in the shop and neither of us felt like getting out in the cold by the end of the day, the leftover film was returned the next day. In my mind only one of the movies was going to be counted against us as late.

So I went to the library this afternoon thinking I'd have to pay a small fine, something along the lines of $1.40. Boy was I wrong.

$8.00!!!!

$2.00 per movie per day. Now, historically I have only rarely turned anything in to the library that wasn't on time, and I don't believe I had ever held a film out too long. Films are only available to be borrowed for 7 days at a time with no opportunity to renew.

I understand that there have to be fees, and I understand that these fees have inflated along with everything else, but $8:00! This afternoon I was prepared to check out two DVDs and a VHS, but when I found out how much I would have to pay I decided against it.

I don't think I'll be using the Public Library much longer. That's an extreme reaction I suppose, but I find those fees offensive. Besides, our Public Library is woefully inadequate. If you've ever tried to do research through the library's catalogue you'll know how difficult it is to navigate to find what you need, and so many of the books I'm looking for simply are not there.

On the other hand, I'm not sure what alternatives are available. I can borrow from people I know, or I can buy books at the store and online, but once I've turned in the books that I currently have checked out, I may not use the Public Library any more.

***Two hours later***

Jim was over at the house tonight and inadvertently convinced me that I simply cannot give up the library. He brought over this lecture series from The Learning Company, which is interesting because I just got their catalogue in the mail yesterday. I cannot give up the library.

What I can give up is borrowing movies from the library. Jim informs me that they carry the heaviest fines, so probably if I limit myself to books, and possibly audio media, anyway--things that I can checkout for three weeks at a time and renew once, I should be fine. That's good to know. A fee schedule is available on the library's website, www.tuscaloosa-library.org. I need to take a look at it because I've been warned about board books as well.