Jan 2021

I still love the old place. It's been 17 plus years now, since the day we walked in and decided to make this old house our home. So much water under the bridge, so much change, since that day. My oldest daughter was ten years old when we moved in here. She now has a home and a family of her own. My son was nine years old. He is 25 now. My youngest was just five years old. I too, have matured here. As I sit here, thinking about all these things, I feel the age creeping into my bones. There is grey now, where once was youthful blonde. Keeping the house from showing it's age is becoming just as difficult as keeping that grey streak in my hair in check. The old bones don't like spending hours on the ladder, anymore. The enthusiam for the difficult things that need doing has waned over the last few years. I do what I can, even though it makes me tired. However there are some things I just can't do. It's either way out of my league, meaning I don't have the skill, or, like the roof, it's going to take a team of people to repair it. I survey the house, the roof, the soffets, the siding, and all the outbuildings from my vantage point in the garden. The garden is where I have poured all of my energy the last few years. Unable to do much on the house, I have planted a vegetable patch, a flourishing Canna garden, Boxwood hedges, Monkey grass bed, Hostas, and created the patio itself last summer. I dug a patch of ground, poured 12 large bags of sand, and laid almost a hundred stones, leveling each one as I went, down on my knees in the grit of the sandy earth. So I would sit, and look at the house, and talk to God about it. Lord, you see this old house. I don't have the time, the money or the skills for what it needs anymore. Or the energy, if I'm honest. Father, I lift up this old house, and ask your help. Then I would finish my coffee and go inside, and do whatever needed doing for the day. Year after year I watched the outbuildings deteriorate. Sometimes I despaired, but not for long. I always ended up at the foot of the cross, where I bring all my difficulties, concerns and joys. 

 One day last year, one of the Mr's friends needed work. He was out of a job. He just happened to be a carpenter. The Mr. hired him to repair one of the outbuildings. It wasn't a huge job. Replace the siding, trim, and paint it. Sitting in my garden, I looked at the finished job, and I marveled. Just like that, it was done. I turned my eyes to the other outbuildings. The garage and what we called the "hot tub room". The hot tub room was a small building with, you guessed it, a hot tub in it. We had never used the hot tub. Really it was a waste of space. However the room had apparently been built around the hot tub, and we had no way to get it out. So there it stayed. The wood trim around the bottom of the building had begun to rot away. The paint had faded. It was ugly. The garage siding was rotting. The soffets were rotting. The door frames deteriorating. And the garage was top to bottom full of junk. We had had many discussions about the junk and how to get rid of it. It would be a lot of work and it would fall on me. And frankly I didn't have the motivation to do it. Cue my 25 year old son. He had been living on his own, and in a few weeks his lease was going to be up. He wanted to be here, and we wanted him to be here with us, but there was no room in the house. At that time my daughter, her husband, their two children, plus myself, my youngest daughter, my husband, two cats, and three dogs were taking up every inch of space in the house. We were overflowing all over the place. We decided the best thing to do was fix up the garage. Turn it into an apartment. I finally became motivated. It was a hot, hot summer, but I didn't care. I began sorting through the 17 years of junk we had accumulated, old boxes of papers, Christmas trees, old furniture, giving some away, saving some, but throwing much out. The Mr. hired some guys to move what we kept, and we bought a storage unit to house it all. And then, the garage was empty. This was something we had been dreaming of since the day we moved in. But it was in terrible shape. The drywall was falling off, missing in places. The mice had obviously been having a field day in here. There were holes, lots of holes. We hired those guys who moved the stuff, and had the reno skills, to fix up the garage. Out went all of the old drywall. New walls, new outlets, an actual ceiling, instead of the openness to the rafters. Paint, an air conditioner. They boarded up the outside where the garage door showed, so no critters could get in. My dad and I replaced the outside door frames one weekend, while he was here on a visit. My son moved in.  One day I got out the paint and I started painting. Gone was the dilapidated siding. And suddenly the garage was not just nice, but very nice! The garage fairly gleamed. I painted the old doors. There just remained the rotting soffets. Then one day the Mr's friend came by, again looking for work. I mentioned the hot tub room. I had taken the time to remove all the dead rotten trim, just the week before. It was ready for new trim. Instead, I came out later, and, to my surprise and delight, he was working on the garage soffets. Over the next month he replaced all of the rot, and painted it, and also replaced all of the hot tub room trim, and is currently making plans to get that hot tub out of there. Once that is gone, plans can move forward for another idea I have had for awhile for that building. More on that, later. 

 I was sitting in my dining room, a few days later, when I heard a knock at the door. I answered to a young woman, who wanted to know if she could look at our roof. Our neighbor was having his house reroofed and she worked for that company. She had noticed our roof. I had a sneaking suspicion when I saw the contractors across the street that they would be over. Our roof is somewhat noticeable, with a crazy steep pitch terminating in a large catslide down one side. And did I mention it needs some repair? I told her about our past experience with our insurance company and our two previous denials trying to get them to help us with said roof, and our formidable deductible. She didn't seem to think any of that a problem. She called our insurance company and got an adjuster out here. They both agreed without question that we need a new one. We are at this very second waiting to find out if this third time, our insurance company will finally relent and help us get a new roof. 

The other day I sat in my garden and looked around in awe. The prayers I prayed have been answered. Just like that, after years of waiting, it is all done, and getting done. It had come, suddenly, at a time when I had been wondering if God heard me, when I prayed. The answer had come, an unequivocal YES. He hears me. He hears us. He may not answer within the parameters of our timeframes, but he hears us.  I would look back on this and many other answered prayers, and would know with a certainty, that although my prayers might not be answered in the parameters of my timeframe, God still hears. He answers in his own time, when He is ready, not necessarily when we are, or think we are. So I wait. And I trust. And I know with certainty, without a doubt, that He will hear my prayers, and in his own time, suddenly, it will be done. And it will be very good.