No more moves.
Setting up our house for our family.
No more shuffling kids and food and cleaning supplies--not to mention the vacuum cleaner--back and forth between two houses!
Eight days and we move.
Eight days and I begin unpacking framed family pictures and books and music CD's that we've had in storage for the past year.
Eight days and I fall into bed, knowing I don't have to go back and forth between the rental and the church building anymore.
Nine days and I wake up and look around me and smell fresh lumber and fresh paint and know that I am home.
Nine days and I wake up in the place I've dreamed of in my heart for 18 years.
And Lord willing,
within six months, we begin what we need to do, to become foster parents for the angel children coming our way.
Could it possibly be, that this time next year, one or two of our heart children will be celebrating the holiday with us?! That our family of four will have grown to five--or maybe even six?
We are weary.
Handsome is a walking zombie right now. . God bless him. I think he's averaging four hours of sleep a night.
The kids are ill from late nights, early mornings, and running around a dust filled building. They're so tired they aren't even sleeping well at night.
Today we couldn't afford to stay home and not go to Shiloh---but we couldn't afford to not stay home. They feel so miserable. So we stayed home and we stayed in.
No Bible study for me tonight. Rather, I'm sitting here in flannel pants, typing this post and stressing all that still needs doing at Shiloh. . . but praying this day of laziness will result in my kiddoes getting on the upward mend.
Eight days and there will be no more back and forth. Just staying put. "Put" in a-still-being-constructed-building, but living there finally.
As I told my Bible study co-leader today, "We feel like we're in labor and the pushing part is getting quite painful and exhausting. . "
I added, "We are downright greedy for prayer at this stage of the game."
This morning, when Bubble woke me up at 4:30, and this after being up with Miraclegirl twice during the night, sobbing because she felt so lousy, I wondered, "Can we do this? I knew it was going to be big, but is it bigger than we can do? Have we taken on too much? Did we hear wrong? It's draining us and the kids are being affected physically."
As these questions swirled through my head, I kept hearing, "Is this not the fast I have chosen?"
I couldn't place the Scripture but I knew it was being spoke directly to my heart. I mulled it over while the coffee brewed and I took care of the clean dishes and did up the dirty ones. Grabbed my coffee cup, took that first amazing swallow of hot Folgers, opened my well worn Bible and right there, was the passage. Isaiah 58:6-12
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
I knew once again, we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing. Building Shiloh. Making it a home for those who need one.
Eight days. . . and we're home.
I didn't get pictures last night so these are a bit behind. Some dry wall went up last night in Miraclegirls' room. Bubbles room is next, finished plumbing, then drywall in our room. It definitely looks more like a home than a sanctuary these days. :)
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| it's a hallway. . . with a huge closet/attic storage area at the end (accessed through the side rooms) |
What this area used to be:
Definitely getting there.
My kitchen and living, which are all one, huge open area, aren't turning out totally how I wanted. While I love my kitchen color choice, my living room color choice isn't working for me. None-the-less, we are on a budget and I have already told myself I am going to learn to like it.
It's not that it's hideous. It's that I was attempting to achieve a sunny kitchen with a light, airy feeling dining/living room.
In other words, I wanted people to feel they are outdoors on one of the most perfect, summer days ever, when they are in that part of the house.
The Valspar "chrystalline" looked so perfect on the card for that goal but now that the paint is going up, it looks more like a boy's nursery instead. Hope remains however, as the general consensus among friends and family, is the right curtains and decorating scheme may still help achieve the desired look, once I begin setting up house. Only time will tell on this one. :)
Tomorrow's goal is to finish up the painting of the dining/living area and get more pictures posted for all of you. Then trim-work, before we move into painting the bathroom and bedrooms and homeschool room.
So much to do, so little time.
T-minus 8 days. . !
