MY MOM

My mom has been the most tremendous blessing to me this week. She is actually a huge blessing to me all the time, but this week especially, she has helped me to accomplish what I could not do on my own in three years! And yes, I have spent those 3 years praying for it to get done, but it simply wasn't a one-person job and no one else could help with it. I will TRY to explain. (I feel like I've explained it at least 23 times to my church family and they still don't REALLY get it. That's been one of the biggest frustrations of this trial.)

Three years ago next month, my brother passed away. (Actually my husband's brother, but he was more than an in-law to me; the sibling of his I was very closest to.) He had battled lifelong diabetes. He was ready to depart and as sad I we knew we would be, we were happy for him. It was the ugliest death I ever witnessed, so much so that I won't describe it, and for his sake, there was relief with our sadness. However, perhaps a blessing in disguise is that we didn't have time to grieve. Immediately upon his death, my husband and mother-in-law became responsible for his thriving pest-control business - literally overnight. (People have asked why we didn't make plans to transition sooner. The only ones with the knowledge to run the business were also the only ones with the knowledge to provide his round-the-clock care. There are still only 24 hours in a day.)

Before Scott's passing, my husband and I were already discussing (O.K. - heatedly arguing in agreement about the goal but not the details) our need to move. We had two more children than when our cute little bungalow of a perfect house was new to us. I had been homeschooling for a year, which we had no specific space for. I had utilized every square inch of horizontal AND VERTICAL space to contain everything, including plastic bins kept on our back porch. Nothing was anymore done for "pretty," but practicality only. Then Scott died. And _________Pest Control moved into our little home office. And our living room. And kitchen, laundry room and at least one of the kids closets. As did the accounts division for the construction company my husband already ran from home. Scott had figured all of the finances for our division of the family business in addition to running the pest control side. I try to tell my friends to each just imagine her husband bringing home his entire office building tonight, not just his own personal office, but the copy machine, the filing cabinets, the tractors and chemicals and tax forms and moving them into your LAST home. Then live that way for three years and tell me if you don't call it one of your major life's trials. :)

So....long story not near short enough considering the title of this post.....our home fell into CHAOS. Since two of these years was spent in THAT home, God asked me to let go of homeschooling. And He asked me when we had no option but to go to our local public school, which was strong in academics, but presented more spiritual problems than my children were mature enough to handle. But as we stepped out on faith (and an hourly repitition of "My ways are not thy ways....."), God answered with the right Christian school for the children to attend AND the increased income to go there. Next, He asked us to start the home search (or rather, we asked Him and He gave the go-ahead, before we knew how we'd pay for it, so He was growing our faith.) We spent 18 months (mostly myself and three children since my hubby and MIL were keeping the business afloat - they felt a strong responsibility to keep all of the employees employed) searching out a home to run such a business, to no avail. So, God having kept us safe so far, we stepped out on faith again and built, something we swore we'd never do. We kept the attitude that if God was in this and we didn't have time to come nitpick the building process every day, we would just have to trust Him that it would get done right. We couldn't afford to stress out our marriage, too, with a typical building process. (Which my hubby seeing every day and myself on many days, we knew faith alone would get us through trusting in contractors without us there.) And we were blessed with a wonderful home. Certainly not any more than we need, but it serves everything our last home was lacking for our new circumstances.

Then we had our identity stolen. And started our daughter in school for the first time (with rocky results.) And went all out for the holidays which we'd had no room to decorate for last year. And started to, you know, actually socialize and go on vacation again. And so the house sat largely unpacked for the past 10 months. And it was extremely inconvenient. People would say, "if you've lived without it you must not need it." I suppose that's true, if you have nothing else to do the next few years but devise creative ways to open food without a can opener, for instance. And as kind as people were to offer their help, organizing a home that even WE haven't had set places for stuff in three years would obviously be impossible for an outsider.

So. That's where my amazing mother came in. She would have been to help much earlier (and has been on several occasions for shorter stays when things were still in such disarray that getting much done was more difficult), but she has been busy helping other people in more important issues - like family members fighting cancer. On her visit this time, though, we made what I've been referring to as "THE BIG PUSH." This time we got about 90% of the contents of our belongings put into the rooms they will actually be used in! We cleaned the garage and organized it to have somewhere to store items that are not in use! We put all of the things to run a business office into the business office!!!! And my personal favorite - purging! We got rid of the things we don't use!!! (Insert loud crowd cheering sound effect here.) Then MY MOM went so much further, INSISTING on paying to have all of our backed up laundry dry-cleaned and ironed. She helped me decorate for Vacation Bible School. She cooked all of our meals (except when hubby helped out and grilled) or paid for fast food and did all the laundry while I worked. She tucked the kids into bed so I could stay up late while I was on a roll. She ran errands so I never had to waste precious moments on makeup or decent attire to leave the house. Then, just because she wanted to, she took Faith to get their nails done at the salon and took the kids to go bowling - even in all of her exhaustion. (And working 14-15 hours a day, we were exhausted!) She gave up a week and a half of her life (and my dad's - home without her) to help me do what one person couldn't. I have tried. I have pushed and clawed only to have my efforts reversed from the small snippets of time available when I am the one cooking and doing laundry and running errands in a home that lended to taking twice as long to perform any given task.) She helped our house begin to take shape into a home again, rather than a ransacked storage closet! And in doing so, she honored the way God made me. I am, by nature, much like my father in the way I process information. I am methodical and NEED order. I need a list and an assessment of results in everything I do. She doesn't. But she helped me to order MY home in the way that I NEED it. No judging. And if in my sweat and frustration, I snapped at her in disapproval of one of her ideas that I knew would not work for me, she never snapped back. She is such a sweetheart. She has a huge heart for helping others. She loves every one of us exactly as we are. And she is the ONLY ONE who could or would do what was required to help. Live with us for ten days (AND THANK YOU TO MY DAD FOR GIVING HER UP FOR US!!!) and fully take over all my regular responsibilities.

THANK YOU, MOM!

THINGS SURE LOOK SUNNIER WITH THAT BLACK CLOUD BREAKING UP OVERHEAD!!!

I will try to post before and after pics as soon as I can. This week was VBS, so I have some regular cleaning to do before they look entirely like "after pics." Now I'm going to go sit and stare at four walls for a long while, enjoying every second of it.

By the way, ever write a post that you re-read and thought it was some of your worst writing ever, but you're tired and realize you'd have to change the ENTIRE thing for it to sound like it makes ANY sense? Yeah, sorry about that.