tested by my garage...

After getting our teenagers out the door this morning, my husband and I sat down to spend some concentrated time in prayer.  With a variety of big-time decisions to pray about - and a huge day ahead of us that would require the answers - we knew that some intense time before the Lord as husband and wife was of vital importance ("The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results" - James 5:16b). As we opened Psalm 105 to prepare our hearts for prayer (I randomly opened to that passage), we heard an enormous accident take place in our garage.  We didn't know what it was, of course, but we could tell it was bad.  Upon arrival, we discovered that the massive shelf holding our chain saw, our extra tool box and ALL our assorted left-over paint cans from over the years had plummeted to the floor from at least 9 feet above.  Consequently, paint from approximately 15-20 gallons was seeping across our newly re-surfaced garage floor as well as the front of my husband's car.

As we sprang into action while the tension mounted between us, God brought to my mind 1 Thessalonians 5:18 - "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."  Immediately, I set out to try to figure out how to be thankful a midst this disaster.  Here's what I came up with at the time that calmed my heart:

• Thankfully we own a power washer (and my husband is here to haul it up from the basement)...
• The warm weather will help dry out the garage...
• I have plenty of disposable gloves...
• It's a good thing we are home otherwise the paint would have dried and the power washer would have been pointless...
• The garage needs a good cleaning anyway...
• I love not needing to save anything from that top shelf (...it's all going into the trash and we're not going to miss any of it!)...
• Only the power washer can clean this floor mat that's been hanging around in the garage needing my attention (...and while I'm at it, I'll clean the other seven mats from both our cars...wow, they've never been so clean!)...
• I'll take this opportunity to power wash the spiderweb-covered garage windows.  I don't think they've ever been cleaned...
• Because I recently laid down this vinyl covering on my floor (that's cleanable), the paint, with much effort, IS coming up.  If it had fallen on the regular floor, we would not be able to get it up...
• Wow, my husband and I are working as a team even though we should be cranky and irritable...
• I'm not sure where I'm going to make up the time this cleanup is taking, but I DO know I trust God and his sovereign control over my life...

Two and a half hours later, my husband and I resumed praying.  Determined to defeat the Enemy and prove to him that he was not going to succeed in steeling our prayer time, we opened once again to Psalm 105 and began reading.  It said, "Until the time came to fulfill his word, the Lord tested Joseph's character.  Then Pharaoh sent for him and set him free" (verse 19-20a).  And as we realized our character was being tested as well, we thanked God for always fulfilling his promises - "...you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now."