Floored by the Lord!

I love the title of this particular post. I was talking with Josh about some great things God has done for us lately and I said, "Man, I'm just floored by the Lord and His goodness to us!"

I find it rather surprising that I'd be floored by the Lord this week. We've had a ridiculously difficult week. I'm sure we've been under spiritual attack. Josh and I have not been communicating AT ALL. Meaning, he could ask how I am doing and I hear that the weather is strange today. Wierd stuff. Beyond that, it seems that everything possible is going wrong on any given day.

For instance, let's take a look at Friday. My 5 year old son was scheduled to have his tonsils and adenoids out on Friday morning. Of course my daughter woke that morning feeling queasy - which meant that we couldn't in good conscience leave her with our friend for the day. So we packed our daughter, our surgery-ready son and the baby into the van and took off. Oh, and because my husband still had to work at least part of the day, we drove separately.

The day had already been rough. I had missed breakfast - which makes for a very cranky mommy. I was emotionally on edge, just knowing that my little guy was going to have parts cut out of his throat. We were running very late (we had to get the older two boys to the babysitter by 6:50am), and I had to wake a really sleepy baby. After several miscommunications with my husband, we were on the road and heading toward the hospital. And then, it happened. Abby threw up. I had no bucket in the car, no time to stop, no extra clothes for her. And because the smell was unbearable for the next 20 minutes of our drive, we drove with frigid air billowing in through our windows.

Thankfully, the hospital staff was understanding and gave Abby a hospital gown to wear for the day. Gabe made it through his surgery wonderfully and after seeing that he was well, Josh took off for home with Abby and Jesse. Poor Josh had also missed breakfast and was so hungry that he stopped at Taco John's for a takeout lunch. Why he ordered a taco salad for the car, I'll never know. But before he could even get a bite, he dropped the entire salad all over the passenger side floor. Lunch disaster. Mess galore. Did I mention that we're saving up for a new van? Partly because we need more space and partly because this one STINKS!

All this to share that it has been. a. week.

Really, imagine one of your worst days and multiply it by 7.

However, even amidst our frustration, God has been working. One thing that Josh and I recently decided was to buy a chest freezer. Life is just too hectic, so in an attempt to knock something regular out of schedule, we've decided to try monthly grocery shopping and store the meat and bread in the freezer. Of course, we'll still have to run out for fresh items, but hopefully this will help a lot. The problem is that our freezer is tiny and even our little dorm sized freezer in the garage is too small to hold enough food for the month as well as the garden produce we froze this summer. And because we just payed out a large sum of money to refinance our mortgage this week, it was one of those "hurry up and wait until we can save money for a chest freezer" situations.

TWO DAYS after we made this decision, Josh was talking with a friend and shared our desire to cut back a bit on our scheduled activities and used our hope to monthly grocery shop as an example. This friend then shared that he and his wife had just defrosted their chest freezer in the hopes to downsize a bit. They wanted to get a small freezer instead. The wheels began turning and Josh suggested that we trade freezers. The next day, our friend came to our house with a wonderfully spacious chest freezer and hauled away our little one. Wow! We hadn't even gotten around to praying about our need for a freezer and God just delivered one to our door.

That makes the week look a bit better in hindsight.

And then the next day, amidst opening Christmas cards, I opened a card that contained a nice sized check. A friend had written a note saying that she unexpectedly came into extra money and wanted to share some with us. She knows nothing about the refinancing or the desire for a freezer. She just wanted to share. She's not a believer, but God was so obviously using her to encourage and strengthen us. WOW!

Okay, Lord, you've floored me! While I sit complaining about my week, God is working out details to encourage me. He was putting things in place before my week even began.

Tell me again, why do I doubt His goodness? Again and again, I am floored by His care, His provision and His love. So instead of looking at this week as an exercise in frustration, I can now look back and say it was the week that God surpassed my wildest dreams ... again.